Fuel scarcity: Minister of state for petroleum resources to meet with oil marketers

- NNPC calls on private marketers involvement in petrol importation

- Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) kicks against hoarding of fuel

- Governor Fayose asks the presidency to take responsibility for the current fuel crisis in the country and apologise to Nigerians

Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources and petroleum marketers will meet at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) headquarters to consider the possibility of calling on private marketers for the importation of petroleum products.

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NNPC at present imports 100% of petroleum products into the country which was different from a previous arrangement of 60-40% government, private sector participation.

Kachukwu stated that the president had ordered for an ad-hoc committee that would engage the federal government on how best way to bring back oil marketers to import petroleum products so as to make sure there is adequate supply across the country.

“We set up a committee which I will head. Members include the group managing director of NNPC, most of the parastatals in the ministry, Deport And Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPMAN), Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) and labour unions. We are to meet in my office tomorrow (today) and dig deeper into this thing and find a long term solution.

“This is a major concern that Nigerians should not be made to suffer, Nigerians do not get through the kind of thing they went through this December. We want to find lasting solution and that is what the committee will come out with in the resolutions.”

Speaking on the president's intention to punish marketers who are bent on sabotaging his government by hoarding fuel, Kachukwu said: “The thing is even that Nigerians who have suffered will want to be sure that we find a lasting solution and find evidential basis upon which to punish people. I don’t have one yet, if you have one I will like to have it,” Kachikwu said.

From Guardian's report, the Depot and Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPMAN) absolved his members of the allegation of hoarding petroleum products.

In his conversation with newsmen, the chairman of the organisation, Dapo Abiodun, said: “There was no hoarding on the part of any marketer. Marketers are your brothers, they are Nigerian citizens, they are businessmen, no marketer makes money from hoarding petroleum products, our business is to take petrol and sell.”

Meanwhile, Governor Ayodele Fayose criticised President Buhari’s accusation that some people were intentionally causing pain to Nigerians by hoarding fuel.

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Through his special assistant on public communications and new media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said: “The president should rather take responsibility, apologize to Nigerians and stop blaming others for his failures because apologizing when you are wrong is the hallmark of honest and sincere leaders.

“What is wrong if he had said sorry to Nigerians who are at the receiving end of his bad policies? But in the case of President Buhari, he will always have someone to blame for his own failure. As a military Head of State, he blamed former President Shehu Shagari’s government.

Since he assumed office, he has been blaming his predecessor. And now that he can’t provide fuel for Nigerians, despite claiming to have removed fuel subsidy, he is blaming some unknown Nigerians. When is he going to be man enough to stop his blame game?”

Fayose said: “Nigerians are aware that petrol is scarce across the country because the Federal Government deliberately reduced supply since it is only the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that is importing the product. This is aimed at forcing increment in pump price from N145 to N185 per litre on Nigerians."

Earlier, Legit.ng reported that Kachikwu, minister of state for Petroleum Resources, had absolved fuel marketers of any misdeeds in the ongoing fuel scarcity in the country. He said that there was no evidence that marketers are hoarding petroleum products and as such, there was no reason to punish them.

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Source: Legit.ng