Nigerians have been asked to prepare for an impending fuel scarcity by the Independent petroleum marketers association of Nigeria (IPMAN).
Vice President of the association, Alh. Abubakar Dankigari, stated that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was no longer loading product which they sold for N133 per litre. He added that private depots around calabar had begun selling product at higher prices ranging from N138 to N140 per litre.
Dakingari revealed that petroleum marketers had grounded their trucks also because of payments owed to them by the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) which amounts to over N200 billion.He says that the scarcity will begin in a few days because of this developments.
In his words;
“If care is not taken, there will be fuel (petrol) scarcity because private depots have started increasing their rates; they are selling the product at a higher rate now in Calabar. Secondly, the cost of diesel is increasing. It is between N250 to N270 per litre. You can see that the cost of diesel is high but it is equally available because it has been deregulated. In addition, PEF that is supposed to be paying the transport fare is not paying.
So, the marketers have decided to keep their trucks. The money PEF owes marketers is now over N200billion. If this trend continues, there will be scarcity and the products will be very difficult to get. There is no kerosene at all.
The major problem is that in Calabar, marketers are buying this product at N138 to N140 from the private depots. You know that what the NNPC said we should collect is N133, but they are not loading”
Dakingari also highlighted that scarcity of Forex was making it difficult to import product from overseas.
