According to what the Federal Government said on Wednesday, they assured Nigerians that the current petrol scarcity being experienced in many parts of the country would be over before the end of the week.
The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, stated this shortly after meeting with members of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria.
She said while the details of the payment of the exchange rate differentials had been agreed, the government was already in the process of offsetting the N185bn debt owed the marketers with the issuance of the Sovereign Debt Note.
Okonjo-Iweala said, "In the next few days, the queues will dissipate; the situation will be addressed and everything will return to normal.
"At the Federal Executive Council meeting today, the issue was discussed in terms of pushing forward and making sure that things get back to normal."
She also said, "We discussed that (fuel scarcity) at the FEC because Mr. President wanted prompt and quick action to improve the situation as fast as possible. So, after the briefing and discussion on both the financial and physical side, what emanated is that this situation we hope will soon be resolved, because on the financial side, action has been taken and it is being implemented through the Ministry of Finance and the governor of the CBN.
"Let it be known that in December, we paid N320.2bn to marketers to settle their claims. We have now approved through the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency about N185bn to be paid to the marketers through sovereign debt notes, which is tantamount to having government guarantee that they will be paid.
"But the long and short of the matter is that the financial issue has been taken care of. The physical quantity is being loaded to be brought to Abuja and Lagos and other cities that are suffering so that hopefully tomorrow (Thursday) or next (Friday), we should begin to see these queues reduce as supplies arrive up to Saturday; we hope that Abuja will be cleared.
"So, the summary is that the FEC is concerned about the matter and discussed it; and beyond discussing it, the President gave instruction on how to deal with it so that physical quantities will be available and the queues will diminish so that by the end of the week, we will have a situation that is clarified."
Speaking on behalf of the oil marketers, the Executive Secretary, MOMAN, Mr. Obafemi Olawore, stated that the queues of desperate motorists at filling stations would ease off in the next few days, noting that the marketers had already moved 495 truckloads of fuel to Lagos, Abuja and environs.
He said, "On Monday, the major marketers moved 132 truckloads of fuel to Lagos, while 87 truckloads were moved to Abuja, and this is exclusive to the quantity moved by the NNPC, independent marketers and other marketers.
"On Tuesday, 137 trucks were moved to Lagos, while 139 trucks were moved to Abuja. You can see that the amount we moved to Abuja was far more than the quantity we moved on Monday. It normally takes between three and four days to transport fuel from Lagos to Abuja; hence we believe the queues will ease off by the weekend, latest."
"Our actions are deliberate to ensure that the queues vanish and normalcy returns. I want to tell Nigerians that tougher days are over; normalcy is expected to return pretty soon."
Story Credit: Punchng
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