17 November 2009
Lagos — LONG fuel queues have hit Lagos State and other major cities across the country, as the problem of logistics hinders efforts by the Pipeline Products and Marketing Company, PPMC, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to discharge products from its imported cargoes for distribution to marketers.
However, major and independent marketers, who spoke to Vanguard, punctured the claim by NNPC that it has products on the high sea.
According to them, such claim does not translate to products availability at the filling stations.
One of the independent marketers also said that his company loaded only 30 trucks yesterday as against an average of 80 trucks it used to load when products were available.
"If NNPC has products on the sea, can we go there to get the products? They have to discharge the products to the private depots they hired for us to go there and lift products. The problem is the same at MRS and Oando. They have paid for the products and they have NNPC tickets but have not been able to get products for the past four days. Before now, once you pay and NNPC gives you ticket, you go to any of the private depots and lift products within 14 hours. But now it takes up to one week to get products after you have paid," he explained.
Also, a highly placed official of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources who spoke to Vanguard on the condition of anonymity claimed that the NNPC is simply trying to deceive the Presidency that it has enough products in stock. If they have enough products then why are there queues? He queried.
According to him, "you can only claim you have products when they are available in the tanks, if they are on the high sea, how can you take that into account as part of your stock. As a government agency in charge of these products, they are simply to ensure that there are no queues in the country, and that has failed". He said.
Meanwhile, a close source at the NNPC told Vanguard on phone that the present scarcity of petroleum products across the country is due to the scheme by marketers not to lift products as well as their refusal to sell the stock in their tanks thereby hoarding the products.
According to him, most of the marketers believe that the deregulation plan of the Federal Government was only put on hold because of the just concluded Under-17 World Cup tournament hosted by the country. "They believe that government would go back on the deregulation plan since the tournament has ended and as such there are uncertainties as to the pricing and availability of products."
Another marketer told Vanguard that if the marketers, both majors and independent, had been given products, there would be no queues.
He stated that under the new arrangement, it is only the NNPC that imports products, adding that the corporation claims to have enough on the high seas but none at the filling stations owing to the problem of distribution.
He stated that though the government has given the marketers approval to import, it will take a few weeks before the cargoes start coming in.
"We were only given approval last week and it takes sometime, to open letters of credit. You have to negotiate with the banks", he said.
Executive Secretary of Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, MOMAN, Mr. Femi Olawore, also punctured the claim by the NNPC that it has enough products, adding that it was only on Sunday that some marketers started receiving products from PPMC.
"If anybody tells you that he has 40 days sufficiency, ask him where he is hiding the products," he said. He however, noted that since the majors cover over 50 percent of the supply chain and have concluded lifting by yesterday the scarcity would still be a thing of the past and the queues would also disappear.
But the Public Affairs Manager of PPMC, Mr. Ralph Ugwu insisted that PPMC has 40 days sufficiency and argued that there was no need for the queues.
"As far as we are concerned, we have maintained the same level of supply as before. We have a robust supply and the queues are uncalled-for. We have over 40-day sufficiency and we have not changed our distribution system. There has not been any change in the supply situation", he said.
Efforts to reach NNPC's Levi Ajuonuma proved abortive as he was said to be in a meeting at the time of filling this report.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2009 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
It is no news that long queues are reported occupying Lagos state and other major cities of Nigeria.For any right thinking person, for every action or step to be taken, he knows what the result will be. The same rule applies to deregulation of oil prices in the country.
We all know that we have a government that lacks vision and competence to rule the country, coupled with selfishness. This is the reason why they take random decisions, and at the same time ignoring warnings from reasonable quarters. An administration that has no control over smooth running of the society whereby rule of law is at stake is doomed for complete failure deregulating fuel prices. How do they expect workers to get to work now on time? How do they expect businesses to run smoothly? And who is to foot the inescapable rise in petrol prices with the imminent price increase in the market? And now the governors are also looking for ways to tap more money from the poor masses that are deprived of benefit from petroleum returns! Anyway, let us keep on watching what will happen next.
My simple advice to the present administration is that if they are not ready for changes to serve the interest of the people they govern, they should please allow the right people to come in. This chain of mess cannot continue indefinitely for the sake of our children and all of us.
Dr Adeniyi, s comment to the above issue is well articulated. No one , even the most uniformed Nigerian will take the rulers serious when issues like this come up . One of the last new idea I read during the recent meeting between The Nigerian Labour union and the governemnt representative meeting to discuss the issue of deregulation was and unequivocal call by the union to the effect that repetitive doldrum in developement programe in the nation is a result of continuous 'RECYCLING "of dead end admistrative machinery in the system which let deepely embedded individuals remain in key economic sectors for the money . It is like a natural right even when the presence of these men couse the nation whole lot of agony and culture of ineptitude in strategic developement pgogrammes. Why should the nation continue to be wrestled down by endemic ethnic and religious sentiment at the expense of collective effort to save the citizen from hunger and stavation.
Nigerians everwhere are doffing their hats to new governor of the central Bank for his ablity to infuse radical and well timed shakeup in that public institution. So goes the NNPC and oil industry . These sectors are key developement sector, infact key catalist to the nations economic take off so the ongest time. These organs have been the subject of inherrent recycling with niggling hoodlums who have been parading themselves everywhere as this and that experts without adding anything to national prestige or pride.
The wrought and degradation of sleeping at gas station for the last 30 years in a nation with massive oil crude oil production is the nation big shame . I have no blame agaisnt foreign oil companies even if they decide to strangulate Nigerians in their own nation by manipulating supply and demand in fuel and gas supply. Nogerian has been fixed as object in the OPEC organization for over a decade. What contribution has he made at home base to ensure that his good advice is used to the greatest advantage to the nation that gave him the honour of being one of the richest man .
Where are the law makers , what is their role if they can not use legislation to direct the focus for national developement ? How hard it is to build new and functional refineries ? How long will Shell and other major producers continue to flare natural gas that flow at disproportionate quantity from Eleme and other oil areas of the nation . What has the Nationalization of BP as AP after the South African question contrubuted to reverse the very reason it was carried out to national objectives ?
Change is the only answer to these deblitating national question . Change these deadwoods they're blocking the nation's window to progress. If we can do nothing about legislators because we put them there , I believe we can do a lot about removing those whose nagative contribution to the wheels of progress keep us shameful before India , China , South Korea , Ghana just to name a few of the nations that were in the same boat with us yesterday .
Nigeria need not line up for fuel this long . The amount the nation shell out to import genarators and the cost of ruuning them far exceed the cost of building and running large scale refinaries which has the advatage of multiple effect in our developement goals . Thing of how many jobs one refinery can create in both direct oil and petrochemical products. Nigerians are all over the world itching to come home to work in these fields . We have massive experts world wide . We're a nation of highly educated people . We're tired of hopeless power struggle at Anambara . Imo , Abia and elsewhere by persons whose commitment to nationalism is questionable . Above all a legislative structure with sincere national agenda.
Fuel crisis is really hard to deal with. Almost all of us are using fuel and we need to find ways to solve this crisis. I also heard that other countries are also experiencing shortage in fuel.
Regards, http://www.ezbusinessloans.com