Calm Down! ‘Fuel Scarcity Will End Before Weekend’- NNPC

President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday directed the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to pay with immediate effect, all outstanding monies owed to oil marketers so as to end the current fuel scarcity that has crippled the nation and caused untold hardship to millions of people.

This was just as the Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (downstream) yesterday summoned top management of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company (PPMC) among others, to appear before it tomorrow by 2pm prompt.

The president, who restated his commitment to Nigerians, said the public should not bear the burden of needless bureaucracy, as was presently the case. He stressed that Nigerians don’t need excuses but solution, which must be provided.

The summons by the Senate Committee was issued against the backdrop of the absence of the agencies to defend their 2015 budgets before the committee.

Committee Chairman, Senator Magnus Abe and his Deputy, Mohammed Goje, said their appearance would have enabled the agencies to explain to Nigerians the cause of the present fuel scarcity and measures put in place to address it.

Infuriated by the absence of the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Joseph Dawha, and other officials at the budget defence session, Abe openly directed the committee Clerk, Mr. Anthony Ikem, to immediately write to the NNPC and other affected agencies to explain why “the corporation did not even have the decency to inform the committee of its planned absence at the budget defence session” either through a letter or a phone call.

“We invited NNPC to this session since last week. The corporation did not even have the decency to inform this committee ahead of its absence today; a very bad practice we thought it had ended with, since last year.

It’ll end before weekend –NNPC

From AIDOGHIE PAULINUS, Abuja

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), yesterday, said the current biting fuel situation in the country will end before the end of the week.

The NNPC Group Executive Director, Commercial and Investment, Aisha Abdulrahman, who gave the assurance in Abuja, said all queues at filling stations across the country would disappear before the end of this week.

Speaking when the Supervising Minister of Information, Chief Edem Duke, led a team of reporters on an on-the-spot assessment of the situation in the filling stations, Abdulrahman said the situation had been addressed, adding that the NNPC currently had adequate stock that could last between 20 and 30 days.

She urged filling stations to complement the NNPC retail outlets by selling petrol for 24 hours to clear the fuel queues across the country.

Abdulrahman discouraged speculation, panic buying and hoarding of fuel, saying the NNPC had flooded the country with petroleum products.

On his part, Duke took a swipe at the opposition political party, denying that there was fuel scarcity.

He said all the depots across the country were wet with fuel, but that the queues in the filling stations were due to speculation and panic buying.

He lambasted the opposition for cashing in on the fuel situation to score cheap political point, even as he assured that the Jonathan’s administration would remain responsive to the welfare and economic well being of the citizenry.

“A good government cannot inflict scarcity on its people. It cannot bite its nose to spite its face, especially at a time when there is political tension.

“There is no government worth its onions that will say, rather than focus on strategies to win election, ‘let us deprive the citizenry of adequate supply of petroleum products’.

“So, when people are sitting in Dubai and issuing statements that are unfounded, I think we, as the conscience of the nation, should know better,” Duke said.