Rising from a meeting with the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) yesterday in Abuja, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) assured that the acute kerosene scarcity being experienced nationwide would be over in a matter of days.
The acute shortage of kerosene nationwide has resulted in severe hardships for consumers who mostly depend on it for cooking with a litre of the product rising as high as N250 in some parts of the country as against the official selling price of N50.
However, the group managing director of the NNPC, Engr. Austen Oniwon, and the executive secretary of MOMAN, Obafemi Olawore, who jointly addressed journalists at the NNPC towers assured that in the next 10 days retail outlets across the nation would have abundant supply of the product.
The NNPC GMD stated that as of yesterday, the corporation had over 40 days sufficiency of kerosene to serve the nation, which it would start pumping out to all retail outlets as well as the NNPC’s mega stations, while it was importing more to supplement what the refineries produce.
On why the situation had deteriorated to the present levels, Oniwon admitted that there had been a distribution and supply network problem which the NNPC and the marketers were working seriously to address.
“we had a distribution network problem which we are planning to address and a supply network problem which we have already addressed, and we will continue to work together to address these problems. We can assure that in ten days all MOMAN stations would have kerosene, and we will also work with the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) to distribute the product through their retail outlet,” he explained.
He disclosed that most of the available kerosene before now had been diverted to the NNPC mega stations on purpose because it was observed that products sent to the affiliate outlets often did not get to the target, adding that the NNPC was set to review its relationship with affiliates which failed to meet its standards.
Oniwon further stated that a joint monitoring team would be set up to ensure that kerosene which would be loaded from the Apapa jetty was not diverted.
In his remarks, Olawore assured of the association’s competence to effectively distribute kerosene nationwide once it receives the product from the NNPC. “We have the capacity to distribute the product effectively across the country, we give ourselves ten days to receive and pump the kerosene to the retail outlets,” he said.
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