Business
FG Orders NNPC To End Fuel Crisis
The Federal Government, yesterday ordered the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to bring an end to the lingering fuel crisis before the end of the weekend.
Addressing newsmen on the Nigerian International Petroleum Summit, NIPS, scheduled to hold between February 18 and 22, 2018, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, said the government is highly concerned about the growing fuel queues and is already working round the clock to address the crisis.
According to Kachikwu, the queues have been persistent because logistics and policy issues that could end the scarcity are largely unaddressed.
“I can tell you behind the scenes, a lot of meetings are taking place because the fuel queue issue is both logistics and policy issues.
“We will need to address fundamental policy issues to enable it go away especially in the area where the pricing is showing differentials between the landing and sales price.
“The president is obviously very committed to keeping the price of petrol at where it is because he realises and sympathises with the sufferings of Nigerians.
“I will hate for my colleagues to come and see the fuel queues so my directive to NNPC would be to get these queues out of Abuja.
“The NNPC is working round the clock on this; if you remember when this first started in December, it was a lot more massive.
“Lagos is fuel queue-free and a lot of the state capitals are. Abuja is still struggling because of the logistics issues.
“I haven’t gone round today but when I went round yesterday there was a huge improvement and I will be instructing the NNPC to do whatever it takes to ensure there are no queues next week.