Nigerians may have to brace up for another round of petrol scarcity across the country by Monday, as the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) yesterday, said it was practically impossible for it to continue with petrol import as a result of the inability of the federal government to clear subsidy debts amounting to N356.2 billion.
Indeed, MOMAN said the available stock of petrol at the Apapa, Lagos depot would have been exhausted by Monday after the weekend break.
‘‘From today (yesterday) what we have left as stock can only take us for three and a half days. So what that means in effect is that, by Monday we would run out of stock,’’ Executive Secretary of MOMAN, Mr. Obafemi Olawore said.
Giving a breakdown of the N356.2 subsidy debt, Olawore explained that outstanding debt on forex and interest amounts to N215,868,237,459 while payment for Batch T of 2014 stood at N21,920,240,980.23 and Batch U 2014 at another N8,607,109,593.82 with Batch A 2015 amounting to N6,873,232,365.66 and Batch B 2015 at N2,911,139,639.70.
However, the MOMAN scribe said another N100 billion was equally outstanding, which the Federal Government gave as post-dated Sovereign Debt Note (SDN) due to mature by end of April also formed part of the 356.2bn debt.
Olawore was quick to add that the SDN should not be a post-dated financial instrument, but a form of payment, adding however that it has not been honoured by the respective financial institutions.
A worried Olawore said the development is already taking a toll on staff welfare, operations and expansion plans of MOMAN members, which he said, if not tackled can lead to retrenchment of some workers.
He maintained that debts are mounting while banks are not helping, adding that very soon Nigerians will have to rely mainly on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC for the supply of fuel in order to address the challenge.
To further compound their woes, he said the recent directive of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to close the forex windows, leaving marketers with the only option of sourcing at the interbank has extended the timeline to source forex by four months, a development he said is hurting business operation planning model.
Beyond that, he said transporters who are engaged by MOMAN members have already written to them, demanding the payment of about N20 billion in claims for transportation of fuel across the country.
But in a swift reaction, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Ohi Alegbe, said that his corporation would not be distracted by the threat of major petroleum products’ marketers to stop importing fuel if the subsidy arrears owed them by the Federal Government are not paid.
The NNPC, Alegbe said, had enough products to service the entire country and was not moved by the marketers’ threat.
Judging by the stock of product currently controlled by the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of the NNPC, the NNPC spokesperson said, there was enough PMS to last beyond May 29.
He added that the corporation would not allow product supply issues to mar the handover as it remained committed to importing adequate quantity of PMS to ease movement and economic activities nationwide.
Alegbe said the corporation was importing more products, and has been allocating products to independent petroleum products’ marketers in a bid to gain penetration into all the nooks and crannies of the country.
“NNPC has put machineries in place, including personnel and facilities, to monitor the movement and distribution of petroleum products to nib hoarding and/ or product diversion by some marketers in the bud”, he added.
http://sunnewsonline.com/new/?p=116257
by ROTMANLUV 2023-07-08, 17:34
