NNPC sings Of Supplies As Scarcity Goes Acute

NNPC Sings Of Supplies As Scarcity Goes Acute

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has since weekend been announcing same old measures that failed to address fuel supply concerns, saying it has directed both the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) and Pipeline and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) to release more fuel to the market.

However, the question remains whether the corporation had deliberately been withholding supplies to the market.

It appears that the corporation is totally out of wits and the new Petroleum Minister, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has been riding on familiar rhetoric in playing to the gallery.

For over two months now, Dr. Kachikwu who has been boastful of his silver touch in making the corporation deliver on its key mandates of fuelling economic and social growth of the country has been churning out more press releases than fuel in an apparent confusion about what next measure to take.

From daily truck out figures which revealed concentration of supplies to the north of the country to lame directives on incapacitated refineries, PPMC and PPPRA, Dr. Kachuikwu has been desperate to impress angry Nigerians who have been bearing protracted brunt of the government’s inability to close widening supply gaps in the market.

For the umpteenth time, Dr. Kachikwu weekend directed PPMC and PPPRA to embark on renewed special supply intervention measures to ensure a country-wide availability of petroleum products ahead of the forthcoming yuletide and beyond.

But PPPRA is not a supply factor in the market while PPMC appears to have exhausted its capacity to intervene in the worsening supply situation.

Private marketers that account for market wetness have chorused the need for government to address fiscal issues like foreign exchange scarcity, falling Naira value and debt overhang in the subsidy mechanism.

But NNPC in a stated that the special supply intervention mechanism is limited to truck out from existing stock located in places remote from the market.

It however added that it is consolidating strategic alliance with some major depot owners and oil marketers with strong regional logistics to ensure maximum outreach of products in the hinterland ahead of the Christmas and New year festivities. 

While calling on members of the public to refrain from hoarding, product diversion and panic buying of petrol, the corporation noted that the intervention measure would help circumvent the challenges posed by the unavailability of pipelines for the transportation of petroleum products.

It noted that product diversion is an economic crime and warned that it will not hesitate to report offenders to the security agencies for prosecution.