President Buhari To Meets With Kachikwu, Baru, Oil Marketers New Year Day Over Fuel Scarcity

President Buhari To Meets With Kachikwu, Baru, Oil Marketers New Year Day Over Fuel Scarcity

There are indications that President Muhammadu Buhari will be hosting a meeting of all stakeholders in Nigeria’s petroleum sector in a bid to find a lasting solution to the recurring fuel scarcity affecting the nation.

Expected at the meeting said to be slated for Monday, January 1, 2018, are the minister of state for petroleum resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu; group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr Maikanti Baru; and the director of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Mr. Mordecai Ladan.

The presidency is also said to have extended invitations to the leaders of the different groups of oil marketers in the country including the executive secretary of the Major Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), Mr. Femi Olawore; the national operation controller of Independent Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Mr Mike Osatuyi; and the executive secretary of Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA), Mr Olufemi Adewole.

Monday’s meeting is expected to review all the issues that have been thrown up by the fuel scarcity, including the now contentious subject of subsidy being paid by the NNPC but referred to as implicit cost.

In the last week, different groups of oil marketers and the NNPC have traded words over the cause of the lingering fuel scarcity.

On its part, DAPPMA accused NNPC of failing to supply petroleum products paid for by its members, a claim the NNPC described as baseless, stressing that it had been supplying the marketers despite a debt of about N26.7 billion owed to an NNPC subsidiary, the Petroleum Products Marketing Company, PPMC, as at December 21, 2017.

In the same vein, DAPPMA retorted that its members had paid about N90 billion to PPMC/NNPC without getting the expected fuel supply.

Meanwhile, the Vanguard reports that the Nigerian Senate has invited all industry stakeholders to a similar meeting scheduled to hold January 4. Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), Senator Kabiru Marafa told newsmen that his committee had summoned Kachikwu and Baru to the meeting on the directive of the senate president, Dr. Bukola Saraki.