FUEL SCARCITY IN NIGERIA, KAICHUKWU’S COMMENTS AND MATTERS ARISING

FUELSCARCITY IN NIGERIA, KAICHUKWU’S COMMENTS AND MATTERS ARISING

First, let me state that it is not a little disappointment for Nigerians how that there have been several conflicting explanations from the government on the situation at hand, and how obviously it appears that the government does not have a central information source, or that the blame shifting game that has been the strategy since this administration has not abated.
The president and minister of Petroleum says one thing, the minister of state for petroleum says another, and then the minister of information compounds the confusion. Anyway, it is not all about how they have not been able to get their information dissemination right, but rather how they have not been able to manage the crisis and keep Nigerians spending productive hours at the filling station with many actually sleeping there all night some nights.


The comments made by the available minister for petroleum at the Port Harcourt refinery on Thursday raised a few issues that I’d like to address, and as a stakeholder in the Nigerian state, methinks I also qualify to comment.


In a report by Dailytrust newspapers, “He attributed the fuel scarcity to some distribution challenges which he said was due to the absence of pipelines.” This quite differs from what we have been inundated with by the oil marketers themselves that there is no product availability even at the depots, thus their inability to lift. It kind of gives us some respite to know that a country that produces crude still has refined products for her citizens. Second, Nigerians have not really depended on their local refineries as much as they have on imported refined products to meet their daily need for fuel. So, to say that the pipelines which run from the refineries are not working, and that’s why we don’t have fuel, is to say in effect that the augmentation supply rather than the core supply which I believe the refineries serve, is the one that is being denied Nigerians. That therefore leaves the issues of imported products which is the main product serving Nigerians unresolved. Mr Minister, maybe you can enlighten us more on that.

According to the same source, Kaichukwu acknowledged that a mistake was made in the non-remittance of certain money which was to settle cost of transporters and transportation margins. Hear him: “there was a mistake in the first place to add the money for the Petroleum Equalization Fund because it was not money for the government, but the common pool for the marketers.”

Is the PEF also remitted to the TSA? I ask as a lay man, and I hope you can forgive my ignorance because not enough education is available on the TSA yet. If the PEF is remitted to the TSA or is part of it in anyway, then, can we say that that is also part of the problem? Should the TSA or PEF or whatever it is called anyway, be operated without consideration for exigencies, necessities, and all such important angles that may leave too much gap than we can fill in a hurry? Did the TSA contribute to the fuel scarcity? If so, Mr President, can we redefine it to avoid a repeat in the near future?

Kaichukwu added a point of interest which I think has been so loudly echoed at this time than ever before. He said: “The objective is that we cannot afford to continue to subsidize.” Every Nigerian thinks so, at least a lot of Nigerians, but I also think Mr Minister will need to give Mr President some more reasons to remove the subsidy.


If there is anything to take away from the comments of the minister, it is that there is some hope for the near future starting
January, but, that’s all we have got to hold on to so far. Please Ministers of petroleum, let’s make this hope certain.

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