Why fuel scarcity won’t end soon

Failure of the Federal Government to allow the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) issue import allocations to fuel importers in advance has contributed to the fuel scarcity being witnessed in the country, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), Magnus Ngei Abe stated this in Abuja at the weekend. Sen. Abe also said the sack of former PPPRA Executive Secretary,

Reginald Stanley when the matter had not been resolved, may have also contributed to the fuel scarcity even as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said there was no plan to raise pump price. He said Nigeria’s four refineries (Kaduna Warri, Eleme and Port Harcourt) have not been working for so many months and when they did, “it has been very epileptic.” Abe noted that the Port Harcourt refiner has not worked for 10 months and efforts to rehabilitate the refineries have failed.

His words: “There’s fuel scarcity because PPPRA was not allowed to issue the import allocations in advance as was usually the case and the Executive Secretary has been removed. I don’t know whether he was removed because of the testimony he gave before the House of Representatives on this issue of kerosene allocation/subsidy. “I was no fan of the Executive Secretary of the PPPRA, but he did a fantastic job; he did a fantastic job of cleaning out the agency, he did a fantastic job of getting this whole issue of fuel subsidy under control and I’m worried that removing him at a time when the agency has never been so well run in its history, I don’t know in what other society that everybody can see that you are doing a good job and that is when you are removed!

“This man had cleaned up PPPRA and I don’t know why he would be removed when it was clear that he’s doing what the Nigerian people want…so, that’s why there’s scarcity because the allocations were not made….“In fact, the importers were even asking for permission in advance to bring in the product while the issue of who could bring in and who couldn’t was sorted out. But he couldn’t get the powers-that-be authorise that and that’s why everything is at a standstill.

Source: Sun News