The House of Representatives Committees on Petroleum Resources (Downstream and Midstream) on Wednesday asked security agencies to clamp down on fuel marketers hoarding petrol and causing arbitrary increase in the price of the commodity.
The Chairmen of the two committees, Ikenga Ugochinyere and Henry Okojie, made the call in a joint statement in Abuja.
The lawmakers said they have held talks with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN), and the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) in a bid to end fuel queues in the country.
The statement read: “We have engaged extensively with them, to ascertain the cause of the resurgence of the fuel queues in petrol stations across the country.
“From our investigations, we have discovered that there is availability of petrol products. We have on good authority that we have in our storage facilities, at least, about 1.5 billion litres of petrol that can last for 30 days.
“It is however saddening to note that it is as a result of logistics challenge that the queues have resurfaced. These logistic issues range from difficulty experienced in transporting products from the mother vessels to onshore. Movement of products with marine shuttle vessels, disruption in the Escravos channels, etc.”
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They accused some individuals in the country of economic sabotage and asked security agencies to move against them.
“We hereby call on security forces to support the NNPCL, NMDPRA, PETROAN, NARTO and other key stakeholders in the distribution value chain, so as to ensure that such acts of economic sabotage that has to do with hoarding, arbitrary increment in price, products diversion and smuggling are detected and dealt with.
“Our people have been through a lot in the last few days and we must not plunge them into further pains. We appeal to all traders and those rendering services, not to unduly take advantage of this temporary challenge, which will be cleared in the next few days,” the statement added.
The committees, however, assured Nigerians that the scarcity of petrol would resolved in the next few days.
Nigeria was hit by fuel scarcity last week with long queues now common sight in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and other major cities across the country.
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