By Musa Adamu
Abuja
The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA)has thrown more light on why it allocated 78 percent of the total volume of 3.1 million metric tons of premium motor spirit (PMS) import allocation for the first quarter 2016 to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Speaking during a chat with news men, the Executive Secretary, Farouk Ahmed, noted that the decision was influenced by the inability of some oil marketers to meet previous import allocation quota, due to difficulty in accessing foreign exchange.
He said: “We gave 78 percent of the import allocation to NNPC because we are sure that it can source for foreign exchange through crude oil sales to finance its importation. If we go back to recent historic trends, especially in the last six months, you will discover that most marketers have had difficulty in raising Letters of Credit due to lack of forex.”
Dismissing insinuation that the import allocation was skewed to ease out private sector marketers from the business and to entrench the NNPC monopoly, Ahmed explained that even the foreign exchange requirement for the 22 percent import allocation to other oil marketers was being covered by both the NNPC and the Central Bank to ensure that they perform.
“The whole idea is to give whatever possible support to the marketers in order to enable optimum service delivery, while ensuring stability in the system.’’
On the reported disparity in pump-price of fuel across the country, the PPPRA boss enthused that with the ongoing massive importation and distribution of petrol across the country by the NNPC, the issue of price disparity would soon disappear as supply was intensified to every nook and cranny of the country.
“This problem is being tackled in two ways. Firstly, with the support of the Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, PPPRA and DPR are working hard to ensure compliance. Secondly, once product is abundantly available it becomes a straight issue of supply and demand and competition for market share. And that is the whole idea.’’
While noting that the worst days were over for fuel supply and distribution challenge, he assured that the days and weeks ahead would witness improved sanity in the product distribution environment.
“What happened was that some Marketers were hoarding in anticipation of a price increase, but that did not happen, so everybody is now releasing their stock into the market and coupled with the massive importation by NNPC. We are indeed hopeful that the worst days are over, although we still have to be a bit patient.”
