DPR reveals real cause of fuel scarcity

The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) on Friday said that the real cause of the enduring fuel scarcity across the country was what it termed “administrative challenges” between government and marketers.

This was made known to newsmen by the Plateau State Operations Manager of DPR, Jeremiah Mashat, during a press conference held in Jos.

“There has been a dip in the supply of fuel to the states in the past three weeks. A total of 214 trucks have been supplied to the state during this period, and if you divide 214 trucks by 21 days, you will get an average of 10 trucks per day for a state that has 17 local government areas.

“You can see that some local governments may not get the product at all; and that is how critical the situation is. The fact is that there have been administrative challenges between government and marketers, taking some time to be resolved.

“Once in a while, government has to reconcile its records with the marketers. And that takes a while. But I can assure you that government is working round the clock to get the issues resolved. We have sent reports from the state to the minister, and I believe the other states have done same.

“And I can assure you that government is working hard to resolve the crisis; and I believe in a short while, the situation will be brought under control,” Mashat said.

He debunked claims by some Nigerians that the scarcity was artificial to make life difficult for Nigerians during the Christmas period.

“It is not aimed at making life difficult for Nigerians at Christmas; it’s a mere coincidence. We go around every day to monitor the filling stations to ensure that the product is not sold above N145 per litre.

“We have also put some measures in place to ensure that trucks that leave the depot are tracked till they get to their destinations to ensure that the product is not diverted to wrong destinations,” he said warning that the punishment for diversion of the product is a fine of N200 for each litre of the quantity of fuel diverted.

READ ALSO: FUEL SCARCITY: NNPC blames marketers as NUPENG demands explanation

Mashat’s explanation is in contradiction to what the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru, gave as the reason for the scarcity.

Baru had said that marketers should be blamed for the scarcity, claiming that the situation is coming despite the fact that NNPC had increased supply of petrol across the country from about 30 million litres to 80 million litres per day.

“But we swiftly swung into action by doubling our supply nationwide. At the time the rumour started, we had about 30 day sufficiency. The normal daily supply to the nation is 700 trucks, equaling about 27 million to 30 million litres per day,” he was quoted to have said on Thursday.

 

 

 

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