The Senate on Thursday asked the
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, to end the
current scarcity of petrol within two weeks.
The upper chamber also directed the
Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mrs. Jamila Soara, and heads of
other agencies in the sector to ensure steady supply of the productin all filling stations across the country at the approved pump price.
Specifically, the Red Chamber threatened stiffer penalties against any Federal Government agency that failed to ensure that petrol, when supplied, was sold at a uniform price all over the country, as against the current discrepancies in prices in different parts of the country.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on
Petroleum Downstream, Senator Uche Ekwunife, stated this while
addressing officials of the ministry, Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation, Pipelines and Product Marketing Company, Petroleum Products
Pricing Regulatory Agency and others, who came to explain to the
committee the reasons for the persistent fuel scarcity.
The Senate had on Tuesday mandated the
committee to urgently examine all the issues associated with the current
scarcity of petroleum products in the country.
It was also asked to determine how the
legislature would collaborate with the executive arm of government to
bring lasting solutions that would prevent future fuel scarcity in the
country, and report back in two weeks.
The directive followed a motion brought
to the chamber by Senator Barau Jibrin and co-sponsored by 23 others on
the need to urgently resolve the current fuel supply crisis.
Addressing the heads of the agencies,
Ekwunife noted that what Nigerians needed now was an end to the problem
and not to listen to stories from stakeholders.
She said, “Nigerians want to see the
immediate end of this fuel scarcity and also the uniformity of the price
of the product across the country. As a committee, our target is that
scarcity and discrepancies in price must stop, and it must be done.
“Therefore, we are mandating the
minister, the permanent secretary and other relevant agencies in the
sector that fuel scarcity must stop in the next two weeks, and that
petrol must be sold at the uniform price of N87 per litre everywhere in
the country.”
The Managing Director, PPMC, Mrs. Esther
Nnamdi-Ogbue, told the committee that the major problem disrupting fuel
distribution in the country was vandalism of oil pipelines by
criminals.
She noted that Nigeria lost about 531
million litres of petrol valued at N50bn to vandals between January and
September this year.
Nnamdi-Ogbue also explained that sharp
practices at petroleum products’ depots such as illegal charges and
diversion of fuel by marketers were some of the factors that provoked
the current scarcity and discrepancies in the pricing of the product.
She added that the sharp practices amounted to economic sabotage.
Nnamdi-Ogbue also explained that the
PPMC had gone into collaboration with the Department of State Security
and the Police to tackle the high level of sabotage in the sector.
She said the oil marketers were hoarding fuel, while security agents appeared helpless in the protection of pipelines.
The Executive Secretary, PPPRA, Mr.
Ahmed Farouk, said the N413bn subsidy arrears requested for approval by
President Muhammadu Buhari from the Senate had been underestimated by
about N2bn.
According to Farouk, the outstanding
subsidy payment for 2014 is N120.5bn, while that of this year is
N294.4bn so far, making a total of N414.9bn.
He noted that the government was
bringing in petrol at a landing cost of N100 per litre, while selling to
consumers at N87 per litre, thereby subsidising the product with N13
per litre.
PUNCH
No comments:
Post a Comment
you are welcome to comment here, but your remarks should be relevant to the conversation. To keep the exchanges focused and engaging, we reserve the right to remove off-topic comments and vacuous messages.