12 March 2014, Abuja – The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) alleged, Tuesday that the failure of the federal government to settle backlogs of petrol subsidy claims of its members and other petroleum marketers in the country was responsible for the lingering fuel scarcity across the country.
IPMAN stated this in Abuja, maintaining that so far, the federal government was yet to make subsidy payments on petrol allocated and supplied by marketers in the last three quarters.
It explained that while subsidy claims for Quarter 3 (Q3) 2013 allocation has been partly paid, no payments have so far been made for Q4 2013 and Q1 2014 cycles, even though supply obligations within these periods were met by most marketers and verified by relevant government agencies.
The President of IPMAN, Alhaji Aminu Abdulkadir, said shortly after a meeting of the central executive committee of the association that it had become necessary to clarify the true cause of the shortage of petrol across the country, especially in view of the ongoing blame games between the government and petrol marketers who have been accused of perpetrating unwholesome acts within the supply and distribution chains of the product.
He also said that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has remained the only source for supply and distribution of petrol across the country, adding however that the corporation’s 50 per cent coverage of the market was not enough to alleviate the scarcity.
“Shortage in supply today is as a result of non-payment of marketers’ oil subsidy; partly Q3 has been paid, Q4 completely not paid and we are in Q1. For our national consumption today, NNPC supplies 50 per cent of the national consumption.
I want to reveal to all of you here today that it is only that 50 per cent of NNPC product that is in circulation. They have stepped up their supply, trying to do what every stakeholder should be doing but it is evidently clear that they cannot do it alone,” Abdulkadir said.
He further stated: “I therefore use this medium to appeal to the minister of finance as a matter of urgency to intervene and pay marketers accordingly so that the augmentation of this shortfall can be achieved in a short while and this scarcity will be a thing of the past.”
Speaking more on the association’s claims of non-payment of subsidy claims, the president said: “We are talking about major fracture in the system. Only 60 per cent of Q3 subsidy claims have been paid.