The Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has denied that the
fuel scarcity witnessed in some parts of Nigeria was caused by
non-payment of oil marketers.
Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala said this while briefing newsmen on Tuesday in Abuja. “I want to emphasise that contrary to some unfounded speculations, the queues are not caused by payment issues.’’
“As you know, we paid the marketers a total of N320.8 billion from the
Excess Crude Account in two instalment in December last year. This underscores the fact that we are taking payment of marketers very seriously indeed.’’
“We’ve been in constant touch and talking with the marketers and a
week ago we reached an agreement with them on their core concerns which
we have addressed,’’ she said.
She said that the government was very concerned about the fuel queues
which had appeared in Lagos, Abuja and other parts of the country.
“The situation is due to a mix of factors including disruption of
pipelines and logistical issues and they are being attended to
urgently,’’ she said.
The minister said that government had reached an agreement with the
marketers union on the N185 billion balances of their payment. She noted that as part of this agreement, it would pay the costs they incurred, their fees and interest and forex differentials.
She added that Debt Management Office (DMO) had issued Sovereign Debt
Notes to cover N100 billion out of the N185 billion agreed upon as
balance for the next payments.
“CBN has also given approvals for the banks to issue letters of credit,’’ she said (NAN)
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