National President of the Natural Oil and Gas Suppliers Association of Nigeria (NOGASA) Bennet Korie has warned that with diesel selling at N850 per litre, more businesses will close shop.
He also revealed that the high cost of diesel for petroleum tankers bringing fuel to Abuja is the reason for the scarcity in the nation’s capital city and some parts of the country.
In a chat with journalists Tuesday in Abuja, the NOGASA president said except the situation is urgently addressed, the fuel scarcity presently being experienced in Abuja and some parts of the country would continue.
He said: “You use diesel to fuel the filling stations, you use diesel to fuel businesses. The (price) increase is the only way out.
“The government should do something fast or in the next two weeks, we are going to buy diesel at N1, 000-N1, 500, if care is not taken.”
Nigeria has been experiencing scarcity of petroleum products since February, and the situation has defied various measures so far taken to address it.
And the situation was further aggravated by the Russia-Ukraine war with the attendant sanctions from the European Union (EU) on Russia, a major supplier of gas globally.
Korie said: “The only way out of the present situation is that the government should increase the pump price of fuel a little to reduce the money spent on subsidy so that the CBN can have more forex. “Diesel is imported and the importers are not getting dollars to import the diesel at the official rate of the CBN, so everybody is going to the black market to get the dollar to import diesel. So, you expect the price of diesel to be high.
“What I am saying is that if you can bring down the use of foreign exchange, it will help other businessmen importing diesel to bring it in at a low price. So, you need to increase the price of fuel so that there can be money for importers of diesel.”
Abuja fuel scarcity
On the fuel scarcity in the nation’s capital city, he said Abuja residents would continue to experience fuel queues not just because of the bridging gap, but also because of bad roads, and maintenance cost.
“The cost of diesel is high. Not just that, the roads are bad, the maintenance is high too. So, you can’t make profit.
“If you go out now, you will see that 75 percent of filling stations in Nigeria are going out of business. It’s not that the fuel is not there, but the cost of bringing it here(Abuja) is too high,” he explained.
On measures taken by Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) and the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited on landing cost, he said this had failed to yield the desired result.
According to him, “it is not enough because at the time of that increase, diesel was between N300-N400. So now, we are talking about N850. “Everybody is suffering. The only way out of this is for Nigerians to take the blow a little so that the rate the country is paying for subsidy will reduce and the money will be used to buy diesel.”
He said the situation was tough for businessmen in the petroleum sector because, according to him, it had become very difficult for them to get loans from the bank to do business.
