Oil marketers on Thursday asked the
Federal Government to deduct the N27bn they owed the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation from the $2bn that it owed them.
The marketers stated that the petrol
scarcity being experienced across the country would have been averted if
the NNPC had listened to their warnings in October that there was a
drop in supply of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol).
On Wednesday, the NNPC attacked the
Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association over the statement by
DAPPMA that its members had no petrol in their tanks despite the
corporation’s claims of importing millions of litres of petrol.
The national oil firm also stated that
DAPPMA members owed it the sum of N26.7bn for products received from it,
adding that the statement credited to the association on the fuel
supply situation, especially PMS, was very unfortunate.
But while speaking on a television
programme monitored by our correspondent in Abuja on Thursday, the
Executive Secretary, Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, Mr.
Obafemi Olawore, asked the government to deduct the marketers’ debt from
the $2bn it owed the oil dealers.
He said, “I know they (NNPC) were
referring to DAPPMA, but talking about who is owing who, this is all
about trade; we are always buying from the NNPC to sell. So sometimes,
we owe and other times we are in credit, but the truth is that the
government is owing us.
“And we have agreed with the government
since June that when you (government) are going to pay us, deduct
whatever we are owing you. Collectively, marketers in the industry are
owed close to $2bn, so you can’t compare it to N27bn. It is not only the
NNPC that we are owing.”
He added, “We owe other government
agencies, but we are saying that let’s start from the biggest and that
is the fuel subsidy, the interest and the foreign exchange. We’ve done
several reconciliations supervised by the Chief of Staff (to the
President) and the Federal Ministry of Finance.
“So nobody is saying we are not owing,
rather the government is owing us more and they should pay us and deduct
whatever we are owing them.”
When asked why oil marketers were
hoarding and diverting petrol as claimed by the Group Managing Director
of the NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, the MOMAN spokesman stated, “I wish we
could meet face-to-face and I will tell him (Baru) when the problem
started and when we started warning.
“I’d stated in the past that if you
leave the NNPC as the sole importer of products, you will get to a point
where the slightest shock will create a problem. The truth must be
told, they (NNPC) are just getting the supply in some appreciable
quantities. The supply dropped in October up until some two, three weeks
ago; that’s the truth!”
Olawore added, “Supply into the system
dropped and somebody must own up to this. I’m not here to pass any
blame; we are here to see how we can solve the problem and after that,
we can sit at the table to look at what went wrong and how to prevent it
from happening again. But we all saw it coming.
“We saw it coming and we said it that your suppliers are defaulting; they are not supplying enough.”
NNPC lied, we didn’t owe it – DAPPMA
Meanwhile, DAPPMA on Thursday accused the NNPC of lying when it claimed that its members owed the national oil firm N26.7bn.
According to DAPPMA, its members have in
the past one month paid over N90bn for petrol supply but have yet to
receive any cargo from the Petroleum Products Marketing Company, a
subsidiary of the NNPC.
The Executive Secretary, DAPPMA, Mr.
Olufemi Adewole, said it was unfortunate for the national oil firm to
attack and accuse marketers falsely.
In a statement signed by Adewole on
Thursday, the association said, “It is an undisputable fact that DAPPMA
members have paid for petrol supply (with bank funds) for over one
month, the value of which is in excess of N90bn, yet the PPMC/NNPC had
no cargo to allocate to them. As such how can we be held responsible for
hoarding?
“The PPMC/NNPC does not transact
business with DAPPMA members on credit; hence, we are not aware of any
indebtedness to the PPMC/NNPC by our members. We again reject any
attempt to blame marketers for the shortfall in supply as it is not our
making since the NNPC has been the sole importer since October 2017.”
Adewole said marketers had continued to
sacrifice to keep the country wet with fuel despite over N600bn debt
owed DAPPMA members and over N800bn owed the different marketers’ groups
as a whole by the Federal Government.
He stated, “The essence of our initial
press release was to shed light on salient issues surrounding the
shortfall in current petrol supply, which is presently solely handled by
the NNPC. It was not an attempt to join issues with the PPMC/NNPC with
whom we are partners.
“The NNPC’s view of our press release
stating our side of the story and seeking to defend marketers for the
very first time against the unwarranted accusations of hoarding and
profiteering is rather unfortunate.”
The association, however, assured
Nigerians that all possible steps were being taken to cooperate with the
PPMC/NNPC to eliminate fuel queues nationwide in the next few days.
Amidst the confusion, queues by
motorists for petrol in Abuja and neighbouring states of Nasarawa, Niger
and Kaduna failed to disappear, as some filling stations were said to
be collecting illegal “gate fees” before allowing vehicles to drive in
to purchase PMS.
In Lagos, the Director, Department of
Petroleum Resources, Mr. Mordecai Ladan, commended the load-out history
of Nipco Plc since the resurgence of petrol scarcity across the country,
with the firm increasing the trucking of the product across the
country.
The DPR boss, who made an unscheduled
visit to the Nipco terminal in Apapa on Thursday, said he was impressed
with the load-out and the assurances by the company’s management on
hitch-free product loading as supplies from the NNPC improved
significantly.
Mordecai, who was received by the
company’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Suresh Kumar, and the Chief
Corporate Affairs Manager, Mr. Taofeek Lawal, said his team was on tour
of depots to ascertain the availability of product stocks.
Earlier, Lawal had informed the DPR team
that the company had in stock 17,000 metric tonnes of petrol or
approximately about 23 million litres courtesy of supply by the NNPC via
the Apapa jetty on Wednesday.
Senate summons Kachikwu, NNPC GMD, others
In a bid to end the ongoing fuel crisis
and the untold hardship it is presently unleashing on Nigerians, the
President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, on Thursday directed the
Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) to cut short its
recess and immediately convene a meeting with industry stakeholders.
The Chairman of the committee, Senator
Kabiru Marafa, who disclosed this in Abuja, said following the
directive, the panel had summoned the Minister of State for Petroleum
Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu; Group Managing Director, NNPC, Baru; and
other relevant stakeholders in the petroleum sector to a crucial meeting
on Thursday, January 4, 2018.
He added that the meeting, which will be
held in the Senate Hearing Room 221 and its proceedings aired live on
the Nigerian Television Authority, was meant to address the lingering
fuel scarcity bedevilling the nation in the last few weeks with a view
to putting a complete stop to the unsavoury development.
The Senate, which is presently on
Christmas and New Year break, is billed to resume committee work for the
defence of the 2018 budget on January 9, and commence plenary on
January 16.
NNPC, DPR clamp down on filling stations
Officials of the NNPC, DPR and Nigeria
Security and Civil Defence Corps on Thursday caught officials of some
illegal filling stations known for receiving diverted products and
selling same to motorists at exorbitant prices in Abuja and environs.
According to the NNPC, seven of such
stations along the Kubwa and Airport roads in the Federal Capital
Territory were caught in the act on Wednesday and Thursday.
The corporation said the petrol found in
their various storage tanks were dispensed free to motorists by members
of the team led by Baru.
“I want to warn marketers who have
refused to heed our advice, especially those operating at night, that
the law will catch up with them very soon. The NSCDC has commenced
monitoring of such stations. On Tuesday, we identified some defaulting
stations and we are going to impound their products and dispense them
free to motorists,” Baru said.
Reps surprised pump price increase hasn’t solved scarcity
The House of Representatives said on
Thursday that it was surprised that petrol scarcity resurfaced in the
country after the Federal Government’s decision in 2016 to raise the
pump price to N145 a litre.
The House recalled that the government’s
reason for raising the price from N87 to N145 was to make the product
easily available and discourage marketers from manipulating the
distribution system.
It reviewed the hardships Nigerians had
faced in the past days and observed that it seemed there were systemic
challenges that the government must address urgently.
The Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Abdulrazak Namdas, who spoke exclusively with The PUNCH
in Abuja, stated that the legislature felt the pains of Nigerians and
gave the assurance that it would support any urgent proposals by the
government to end the scarcity quickly.
He said, “We are surprised that the last
fuel price increase from N87 to N145 has not solved the problem of
scarcity. We were told that the solution was to increase the pump price
and we supported the executive’s proposal.
“It appears that there are more system
issues than the pump price increase, which we supported in 2016.
However, we are always ready as a legislature to support any proposal
that the government thinks will lead to solutions and reduce the
hardships being faced by our people.”
Namdas added that since the scarcity of
the product resurfaced, the government had not communicated its
challenges to the legislature.
He explained that in the circumstances,
the legislature believed that the executive was handling the matter the
best way it could to end the suffering of Nigerians.
He stated, “Normally, the executive will
inform us that there is a problem. In this present case, they have yet
to tell us that there is a problem that they cannot handle.
“They told us that increasing the pump
price was the solution. We are surprised that despite the last price
increase, scarcity is here with us again.”
Namdas stated that the House believed
encouraging local refining and making the country’s four refineries work
would address the scarcity of fuel on a permanent basis.
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