Members of the Organised Private Sector have commended the Federal Government for accounting for the savings from fuel subsidy removal and other reforms, but were not satisfied with some of the details on how the fund benefited Nigerians.

The OPS, including the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the disclosure provided useful information on where the money went but raised concerns over excessive government spending, debt servicing and the limited evidence of productive investment. They also urged the government to focus on improving welfare and livelihoods with the savings.

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, had disclosed on Wednesday in Abuja that subsidy savings mobilised N15.8tn for the Federation between June 2023 and December 2025.

He said the Federal Government received N5.4tn, while states and local governments shared N10.4tn. The government also generated N3.1tn in incremental independent revenue and raised N11.9tn through additional borrowing.

Oyedele said the government incurred additional expenditure of about N30.64tn during the period, including N9.39tn on wage adjustments, N9.37tn on the exchange-rate impact of external debt servicing, N6.47tn on strategic infrastructure and N3.14tn on electricity subsidies.

Reacting in an interview with The PUNCH, the Director-General of the LCCI, Dr Chinyere Almona, said the figures showed that the country remained on an unsustainable spending path, with recurrent expenditure exceeding capital spending.

“The minister’s efforts to address public concerns about subsidy savings and spending are commendable and should be sustained. It answers where the money went, but not what changed for businesses or households,” Almona said.

She said the chamber welcomed the N6.47tn infrastructure spending but demanded project-level details to establish whether the investments addressed the needs of businesses, particularly in power, transport and ports.

Almona said the report raised four major concerns, including the fact that wage spending exceeded the Federal Government’s subsidy savings. She also noted that the N9.37tn spent on external debt servicing exceeded the N6.47tn allocated to infrastructure, while the N11.9tn additional borrowing contradicted the need to reduce unnecessary government costs.

The LCCI boss also criticised the N3.14tn electricity subsidy, saying it appeared to contradict the logic behind electricity tariff reforms and highlighted the high power costs that continue to burden businesses.

“In all, we call for more prudent fiscal spending, widening of the fiscal space to raise revenues, and regular reporting on the business of the government. The availability of government statistics supports robust business planning and decisions. It creates a more stable and predictable business environment,” she added.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Dr Muda Yusuf, also commended the disclosure, describing it as an important step towards transparency and accountability.

“One must commend the transparency and accountability that this report has demonstrated, because this is about accounting for the resources of the state, for citizens and all of that. So it’s good for transparency, it’s good for accountability. But this is what governance is all about,” Yusuf said.

He said the report had clarified how much the government received and how it deployed the resources, but argued that another assessment should determine whether the spending delivered value.

“The other issue is the quality of spending of the money, because you can spend X, Y. But as to the quality of spending, that’s a different conversation, which we also need to have,” he noted.

Yusuf added that the government must now demonstrate that allocations to infrastructure, agriculture, transport and other sectors produced value for money.

The President of the Association of Small Business Owners of Nigeria, Dr Femi Egbesola, said transparency alone would not satisfy businesses and households unless the spending translated into measurable economic improvements.

“The disclosure is useful, and we welcome the transparency. However, for the average Nigerian and the Small and Medium Enterprises community, the bigger question is not only ‘where did the money go?’ but ‘what has the money done for Nigerians?’” Egbesola said.

He said Nigerians should see the impact of the N15.8tn savings through lower business costs, improved electricity supply, better infrastructure, affordable credit, job creation and stronger purchasing power.

“Today, many SMEs are still battling high energy costs, expensive finance, weak consumer demand and rising operating expenses. So, the fiscal numbers are encouraging, but the benefits have not yet sufficiently reached the shop floor and the household,” he said.

Egbesola said the government needed to shift from fiscal stabilisation to translating the reforms into broad-based economic prosperity. He also raised concerns over the N11.9tn additional borrowing and N9.37tn external debt servicing, arguing that government borrowing could further restrict private-sector access to credit.

“Our message is simple: Nigeria must now move from borrowing and spending to producing and earning. Every naira borrowed should create productive capacity, jobs and revenue that can eventually reduce our dependence on borrowing,” the ASBON chief concluded.