Nigeria Probes Possible Fraud Over $12.6 Billion Subsidies

Nigeria’s parliament is probing whether fraudulent practices by government agencies fueled a fivefold rise in spending on gasoline subsidies in the past three years, said the head of the investigating committee.

The government is probably paying more than 2 trillion naira ($12.6 billion) to fuel importers to cover the difference between market costs and state-regulated prices for last year, said Farouk Lawan, chairman of a House of Representatives committee investigating the discrepancies. That’s up from 384 billion naira in 2009 and represents almost half of last year’s