Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and the Group Managing
Director of NNPC, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has addressed Nigerians in an new
video which he posted on his official Facebook page.
In the video clip, he explained why the fuel scarcity has persisted
this long. According to him, unavailability of Forex, activities of
pipeline vandals and the reduction in subsidy payment had adversely
affected the importation of refined oil into Nigeria by many of the oil
marketers
"First on resumption in August, we had a very major problem in
our hand because subsidies of N500-N600 billion hadn't been paid for
over a one year period of time. and so those who were importing had
began to very quietly reduce the level of importation that they had and
although I struggled very hard and got the Assembly approval and the
President's approval to pay a good portion of that subsidy sometime in
November, by then it was too late because although they got the money,
they didn't have access to foreign exchange and so the critical reason
why we have this supply gap today is that although NNPC has its own
445,000 barrels allocation of crude which is meant to meet 50% of the
country's delivery, the Individuals who should provide the remaining 50%
are not bringing any product," he said.
He identified incessant pipeline vandalization as a major factor responsible for the short fall in fuel supply.
"The second problem is pipeline vandlization. If you look at
the statistics of this year versus last year, we have had almost two
times the number of pipeline disruptions that we have had over the last
2-3 years."
The minister said further that no matter the transformation agenda
of the government, issues of fuel scarcity have the tendency to bring
down the polity and cause mayhem
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