Nigerians have been assured that the prevailing fuel crisis ravaging various parts of the country would soon be over.
The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) gave the assurance in Warri, Delta State.
The NMDPRA Coordinator in Delta, Mr Victor Ohwodiasa, gave the assurance when he led a team of the regulatory authority on an unscheduled inspection visit to some petroleum depots at Ifiekporo, on Thursday evening and Friday in Delta.
He said the regulatory authority would ensure that the vessels discharge products as quickly as possible.
His words: “We will ensure that the depots receiving these products lift them out to the end users.
“By the time we have all the depots wet with PMS and they are lifting regularly, the looming scarcity we are experiencing will disappear,” Ohwodiasa said.
The agency’s coordinator said the essence of the visit was to ensure that depots with the products dispensed to licenced retail outlets, eliminate middle men and also avoid diversion.
“Once we get our daily manifest, we send our men out to make sure that those trucks get to their actual locations.
“There might be one or two infractions; we have apprehended about two persons for product diversion and they were made to face the full wrath of the law.
“As a regulatory authority, saddled with the responsibility of regulating the Midstream and Downstream of the Oil and Gas sector in Nigeria, we will continue to do what we need to do.
“This is to ensure that the products are available and adequately and fairly distributed within Delta and neighboring states,” he said.
He, however, urged people to stop panic buying, assuring that the Federal Government was doing everything possible to ensure availability of petroleum products in the country, particularly during the Yuletide season and beyond.
Ohwodiasa added that NMDPRA would ensure that the products get to the consumers at the right price, quality and quantity.
Meanwhile, the organised labour has lamented the impact of fuel queues in the country.
Labour said it was seriously bewildered and disturbed by the persistent shortage and uncontrollable prices that players in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry are meting out to Nigerians.
In a joint statement, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress, Ayuba Wabba and Festus Osifo said: “The persistent shortages of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise called petrol in the country has become a source of pain to the Nigerian people.
“It has led not just to long avoidable queues, but also adulteration of the product by the unscrupulous elements, exploitation of the consumers, turning fuel stations to traffic menace.
“All these have tragic consequences for the Nigerian people and debilitating effects on the health of the economy which itself is not in a good state.
“We are reliably informed that the shortage is deliberately fostered by players in the downstream sector in order to hike the price far above the government approved threshold. It is an added problem when non-state actors begin to arrogate to themselves the power to determine the price of a liter of fuel far above the rate pegged by government in the current subsidy regime
“The Nigerian people and tax payers currently expense several trillions of Naira annually to subsidize petrol. The same people cannot be exploited and made to pay over N240 per liter when the current ex-depot price is currently fixed at N148.19k per liter. The opportunity cost of the subsidy payment is enormous and yet the benefit of the subsidy regime is gradually being eroded.
“No country develops when its people are subjected to perennial hardship and its industries are shackled by unnecessary chains of miseries.
“It is more disturbing that the government is equally demonstrating high level of culpability in the unwholesome situation by its silence and unwillingness to frontally and publicly address the harrowing experiences of Nigeria in the current situation because no concerned and responsive government will bury its head in the sands like the proverbial Ostrich while the citizens are being brutally exploited.
“For the records, no private individual or companies are importing a litre of PMS into this Country, all Products are imported by the government and there is no record whatsoever that the agency of government that is importing the products has added a kobo to the price it sells the Products to the Marketers. Then who is benefiting from this racketeering?
“We are strongly worried that leaving our energy security and sovereignty in the hands of unscrupulous capitalists and their collaborators will further plunge this nation into the economic abyss we are working hard to avoid. The labour centers therefore demand of the Federal Government an end to the avoidable, unnecessary, crippling and pain-inducing fuel shortages and unapproved price hike of up to N240 in the country. No excuse is good enough to cripple the country. If there are challenges, they should be fixed; we have a government in power to fix challenges, not to make excuses.
“Organised Labour are ready and willing to engage the Federal Government and assist in all ways possible to overcome the country’s present challenges. But we caution it not to take either the Labour Movement nor the Nigerian people for granted as it seems to be manifestly doing on various crucial national issues.
“Regulatory and law enforcement agencies should do more to protect the larger Nigeria society from exploitation.”

By Frank Ikpefan

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