THE Federal Government has made an arrangement to import
about 26 cargoes of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise known as fuel, to
ensure the free flow of the product during Christmas season.
He said that the government would embark on truck tracking
from next month to ensure effective
delivery of product from loading point to
destination.
The Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, who
made this disclosure yesterday during the inspection of filling stations in
Lagos, warned all depot owners to desist from selling petrol above official
depot price of N 77.66k.
The minister said that the country has enough petroleum
products that can serve the nation beyond the yuletide period, adding that the
major challenge on the scarcity was due to inability of marketers to receive
their subsidy claim.
According to him, “we are here to see what is going on in
the depot so as to ascertain the level of availability of the product in most
of the depots we used for our throughput.”
Profiteering by people is one of the major problems we are
having.
You can see the challenge we are having in bringing
products, we are doing all we could to ensure free flow of products, while lots
of vessels are coming into the country before December. The amount of cargoes
expected in December is enough to serve the country; we need to deal with
logistic issues.
Nigerians should stop punishing their fellow Nigerians
because of making profit.”
Kachikwu said that he has instructed the Department of
Petroleum Resources (DPR) to sanction any depot owner found selling above depot
price.
He appealed to Nigerians to be more patient, adding that
non-payment of subsidy claims of marketers contributed to the ongoing scarcity.
The minister said that the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) had been the only corporation importing directly, adding
that the National Assembly would pay marketers part of their money this week.
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