The Federal Government has announced that it will resume the payment of fuel subsidy next month.

The Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama, made this known in Ibadan on Tuesday, shortly after the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting ended.

The government had in April, stopped the payments of fuel subsidy to oil marketers, in a bid to ensure prudent management of the fuel subsidy budget.

While N232 billion was budgeted for the payment of subsidy arrears in the 2012 budget, a whopping N451bn has so far been paid as arrears to oil marketers for 2011.

This made the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala constitute a committee led by the Group Managing Director, Access Bank Plc, Mr. AigbojeAig-Imoukhuede, to verify the payment of subsidy arrears.

“In the month of May, just like April, we didn’t pay any amount for subsidy. This is because we stopped the payment of fuel subsidy because we felt there was a need to carry out a reconciliation of the payments” he said.

Ngama noted that the committee had concluded its assignments and would submit its report to the Federal Government before the end of this week.

“I am glad to inform you that the committee that was asked to do that assignment has completed its work and the report will be sent to the Federal Government. As this committee submits its report; it, therefore, means that the ministry will from next month resume the payment of subsidies to oil marketers.”

He said apart from the N451bn paid to oil marketers, additional N50bn was recently released, thus bringing the subsidy bill for this year to N501bn.

Asked how much had so far been spent on subsidy this year, Ngama said,”N451bn has been paid and additional N50bn was last month released before the suspension of payment.”