'Over 30% of fuel supply is diverted to Cameroon, Chad,' Minister laments

dimeji akinloye

April 25, 2016 8:49 PM

He said that no fuel truck in Nigeria has a tracker, which leaves the NNPC at the mercy of the truck drivers.

Ibe Kachikwu

The Minister of State for petroleum,

The Minister stated this in Lagos on Monday, April 25, at the town hall meeting hosted by the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed.

He said the scarcity has lingered mainly because the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) are being diverted other countries rather than points of sale in Nigeria, and the trucks cannot be tracked.

“Do not judge our work on the basis of the difficulties you have had in fuel supply. I love your patience, I appreciate it; we are working feverishly at solution. We are looking at intelligent solutions,” the Minister said.

“Over 30 per cent of (fuel) supply is diverted.

“For example, in the last five days, we have pumped 400 trucks of product into Lagos state. The total consumption (in the state) at the maximum is 250 trucks, and most of those trucks are diverted from Lagos to the hinterland of Chad…and Cameroon.

“We need, literally, a whole army to stop this from happening. So I continue to supply and over-supply and so we struggle.”

According to him, Nigerians must join the government in tackling fuel crisis by reporting incidents of diversion of fuel.

READ: 'I don't have magic to end fuel scarcity,' Kachikwu says

“We started publishing deliveries and telling you the filling stations they were allocated to, so if you don’t find products in those filling stations, there are hotlines to call and for police to report," Kachikwu said.

He said the NNPC has mostly dealt with the shortfall in supply resulting from debt to marketers; and then foreign exchange scarcity, which has substantially improved supply of products.

However, he noted that this move is just a short-term solution, adding that the private sector “needs to drive this business… because ultimately, without doing that, we are never going to find a solution to this problem”.

He said currently, the NNPC shoulders the entire work of supply and regulation, and takes all the loss - the model which he insisted must change.

dimeji akinloye