Motorists queue for fuel at NNPC Filling Station along Kubwa Expressway in Abuja yesterday. Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu yesterday instructed the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to dispense for free any fuel station found hoarding petrol.
The minister gave the directive when he toured some selected fuel stations in Abuja to acquaint himself with the situation of fuel supply and also assure measures taken to address the issue. He said serious penalties would also be imposed on that same station.
Kachikwu who is also the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) instructed most stations to stay open for 24 hours as the police will provide protection for them. At the NNPC, Forte Oil and Conoil stations visited by the minister of state within Abuja city, there were chaotic scenes of motorists with vehicular movements heavily impeded.
But speaking after the inspection at the Conoil station located opposite the NNPC towers, he said sealing fuel stations was not the answer but penalizing them. On the N413bn subsidy payment to oil marketers approved by the President which is awaiting Senate approval, he disclosed that discussions were on with the Senate president for a speedy consent.
He identified some of the causes of the fuel queues to include the inability of the pipelines to function effectively, delay in the payment of petroleum subsidy to marketers whom have stopped importing products as only NNPC has been importing petrol and trucking problem out of Lagos especially within Apapa corridor. Meanwhile, the DPR said that a total of 149 trucks of petrol were supplied to Abuja and its environs yesterday.
Spokesman DPR Abuja, Mr Mohammed Saidu said that this bring the total number of PMS supplied to Abuja between Monday and yesterday to 294 trucks. Saidu who said the measure was to ease off fuel queues at filling stations in the city explained that 99 trucks were supplied inside Abuja city alone yesterday.
Similarly, the truck out of PMS from NNPC depots across the country as at Monday indicated that 38.2million litres were supplied. 6.6m litres was supplied from Suleja depot, Kaduna 1.8m litres, Kano 6.1m litres, Minna 300,000, Gusau 3.4m litres, Mosimi 4.2m litres, Satellite 3.4m litres, Illorin 629,000, Ore 832,000; Ibadan 413,000; Gombe Area 5.2m lires, Benin 331,000; Aba 179,995; Makurdi 1.5m; Enugu 2.9m lires of PMS.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) said that it was outraged by the lingering fuel scarcity which has led to increase in prices of essential commodities and long queues in different parts of the country.
A statement from the NLC yesterday, signed by its President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba said that the union was worried that fuel crisis still persists despite assurances from government and its agencies that there was enough fuel being distributed in the country.
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