Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
The
Federal Government on Tuesday expressed concern over the long queues of
motorists at petrol filling stations in Lagos, Abuja and other parts of
the country, stating that a Sovereign Debt Note of N100bn had been
issued by the Debt Management Office to settle part of the subsidy
arrears owed oil marketers.
The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, confirmed the issuance of the SDN through a statement
issued by her Special Adviser on Communications, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu.
The minister sympathised with Nigerians
whose lives were being disrupted by the scarcity of petrol and said the
government was working hard to end the scarcity within the shortest time
possible.
Specifically, she said an agreement had
been reached with the marketers’ union that N100bn out of the
outstanding N185bn subsidy debt be paid.
The minister said as part of the
agreement, the government would not only pay the costs that the
marketers had incurred, but also the interests and foreign exchange
differentials.
In order to facilitate the payment, the
minister said the Central Bank of Nigeria had given approvals for banks
to issue letters of credit to oil marketers.
The minister said that contrary to
speculations, the queues were not caused by payment issues, adding that
the government paid the marketers a total of N320.8bn from the Excess
Crude Account in two instalments last December.
Meanwhile, officials of the Nigeria
National Petroleum Corporation and heads of some subsidiaries under it
did not appear before the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) on
Tuesday to defend their agencies’ 2015 budget proposals.
The Chairman of the committee, Senator
Magnus Abe, lamented that by their action, they had deprived Nigerians
an opportunity to know the reasons for the current fuel scarcity and
possible way out.
But the Executive Secretary, Petroleum
Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency, Mr. Farouk Ahmed, told the
senators that the scarcity currently being experienced across the nation
was caused by the two rounds of devaluation of the naira carried out by
the CBN in November last year and last month.
Ahmed told the committee that the
devaluation caused huge confusion in the oil sector as the agency did
not know the naira exchange rate to the United States dollar to be used
for payment of marketers who imported fuel.
He said the marketers could not deliver
the cargoes of fuel expected from them because they were not sure of the
exact delivery cost, adding that the old template used for paying them
was no longer realistic.
Ahmed said the PPPRA had to seek the advice of the CBN before it could eventually draw up a new template.
He, however, stressed that the crisis had
been resolved as the Budget Office on Monday approved the payment of
the outstanding bills that the marketers were being owed.
The non-appearance of the NNPC management before the committee prompted Abe to read the riot act to the corporation.
Abe said, “We invited the NNPC to come
and defend their budget. They didn’t show up. They don’t even have the
respect to give any response to the invitation. We are directing the
clerk to re-invite the NNPC, Department of Petroleum Resources,
Pipelines and Products Marketing Company and all the refineries.
“All of them must appear before this
committee on Thursday. All of us have our roles in the constitution. The
letter should contain a strong warning that NNPC must never repeat this
before the committee.
“The NNPC has never agreed to bring its
budget for discussion. This is the same problem we have every year. I am
disappointed that after we agreed on this issue last year, we are still
back to it.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of motorists besieged the few petrol stations that sold the product in Abuja and Lagos on Tuesday.
The Independent Petroleum Marketers
Association of Nigeria and Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria
said they would resume the importation of petroleum products by the
weekend.
The marketers, it was gathered, decided
to resume importation following the Federal Government’s promise to pay
up the subsidy arrears owed them as well as the accumulated interests on
the loans they took from banks to import, and the foreign exchange
differentials.
A former Chairman, IPMAN, Western zone,
Mr. Olumide Ogunmade, told one of our correspondents in a telephone
interview on Tuesday that some members of the association were expecting
to receive their consignments by the end of this week.
He said the banks had agreed to honour the payment advice of the marketers.
Two members of MOMAN, who pleaded anonymity, said product cargoes were being expected.
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