THE fuel scarcity witnessed in some cities, including Port-Harcourt, Abuja, Ilorin and Asaba, is spreading to some other places nationwide.
Already, signs of shortage in supply of petrol has been seen in Ibadan, Osogbo, Ado-Ekiti, Ilorin, Owerri, Kano, Sokoto and Maiduguri, with the long queues building up in the places.
The Moment learnt that the biting fuel scarcity nationwide followed a report that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) oil marketers and importers had decided to reduce volume of importation by 40 per cent.
The decision by the NNPC and the industry operators to reduce importation of the product was hinged on their ordeal at the on-going probe by the Farouk Lawan-led House of Representatives Committee over allegations of fraud in the disbursement of fuel subsidy.
In the affected cities, however, youths have started making brisk business, selling fuel at black market rate of N150 per litre at major streets. The fuel shortage is yet to spread to Lagos.
Fears over the sad development heightened recently as the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Austen Oniwon, disclosed that consumers were fast depleting the stock of petrol in the national reserve, which could sustain the nation for 31 days.
Sadly, the NNPC has not made any effort to replenish the reserves through fresh imports.
Nigerians consume over 35 million litres of petrol daily, while about 90 per cent of all the refined petroleum products are imported due to the inability of the nation’s four refineries to function at full capacity.
The Moment investigations also revealed that the debate by the National Assembly in the last quarter of 2011 was whether government would retain or withdraw subsidy on 1.3 million litres of petrol import.
Consequently, the delay stalled the importation of fuel that should have served the first quarter of this year.
NNPC data revealed that Nigeria imports in excess of five million litres of petrol last year, as the imports did not take into account the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Authority (PPPRA) allocations.
Some banks were also said to have been discouraged by the probe and were not persuaded to funding fuel imports.
This position is worsened by the banking reforms that prevent them from participating in some kinds of businesses.
But the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, who spoke on the issue at the weekend in Warri, Delta State, attributed the fuel shortage to subsidy probe by the two chambers of national Assembly that delayed the arrival of imported cargoes of fuel and the placing of new imports in the New Year.
She said that Federal Government has revised the provisions of the 2012 budget and set aside N656.3 billion as subsidy for petroleum products for the year, adding that the NNPC, oil marketers and other credible fuel importers would soon resume importation of fuel based on the clarification of issues that bordered on fuel subsidy payment.
The minister explained that Federal Government has also directed the NNPC, in the interim, to release its strategic reserve across the states to make petrol available to end-users pending the restoration of normalcy.
‘We have just come out of the fuel subsidy situation and we are trying to recoup. There was a certain fear of not knowing exactly what was happening in terms of the budget subsidy provision and I think it has been cleared off.
There was issue between our tiers and marketers and they were holding back as they were trying to clarify exactly what was happening.
The fuel price was N140 and it went for N97 and there was uncertainties but I know it has been cleared now in the supplementary 2012 budget,’ she said.