…blames marketers, fi lling stations for hoarding
*** There’re enough petrol to go round’
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, said yesterday that fresh measures are being put in place to halt what it described as artificially induced fuel scarcity in some parts of the country particularly, in Lagos and its environs.
Acting Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the Corporation, Dr. Omar Farouk Ibrahim, in a statement in Abuja justified the accusation that some marketers are hoarding the product, following measures put in place Abuja, which have ensured availability of fuel at filling stations.
According to him, NNPC in conjunction with the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, will commence detailed monitoring of fuel stations in Lagos and its environs as well as any other state to checkmate the incidence of hoarding and panic buying.
“We tried it in Abuja and its environs and today the effective monitoring has decimated the hitherto long fuel queues. We are extending the extensive joint monitoring to Lagos,” Dr. Ibrahim said.
The NNPC spokesman stated that as the supplier of last resort, the Corporation is doing everything within its mandate to alleviate the avoidable hardship caused by the scarcity, while reiterating the fact that the Federal Government has no plan to increase the price of petrol as being speculated.
“It is pertinent to state for the umpteenth time that there is no plan by the Federal Government to increase the price of petrol.
“Once again, we appeal to marketers to refrain from hoarding and to members of the public not to engage in panic buying. We are convinced that in the days ahead, the fuel situation will normalise as there are enough petrol to go round,” he said.
The fuel shortage, which started last week, got worsened over the weekend as all major and independent marketers stopped selling the product across the country.
A survey showed that only few filling stations were selling fuel in Lagos and its environs yesterday.
At the few stations dispensing fuel, motorists and other users were seen in long queues, which caused serious traffic bottleneck in many parts of the metropolis.
Some of the marketers who preferred not to be named said they had exhausted their stocks, so, they had nothing to sell to the public.
However, illegal operators were seen along major roads, including Ikorodu road selling fuel in jerry cans at exorbitant prices.
For instance, a four liter jerry can went for as high as N2,000, while a five liter jerry can went for N3,000.
The Executive Secretary of the Major Marketers Association of Nigeria, Mr. Timothy Olawore, said in a telephone interview that the shortage was real.
He said” “Once this shortage starts, it usually takes some time to clear. We are working to clear the long queues. But it would certainly take a while.
“The long queues persist mainly because of the weekend, when some operators may not be working. When most of them return to work this week, the queues would certainly disappear because the stocks situation has improved.”
The fuel shortage, which started in Abuja and Ogun State, spread to Lagos and other parts of the country mainly because the Federal Government did not make plans for the importation meant for consumption in the first quarter of 2014.
However, the Federal Government has granted allocation to about 40 indigenous and foreign firms to import petrol for local consumption in the first quarter of the year.
The beneficiaries, including major marketing firms, independent marketers and foreign oil traders started collecting their letters of allocation from the PPPRA last week.
A source in the ministry of petroleum resources, who declined to list the firms, said the selection was based on critical essentials, especially past records of the companies and the facilities at their disposal.
Source: National Mirror
