The Senate Committee on Public Account yesterday rejected demands by Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) on the federal government for increased subsidy payment for the importation of petrol into the country. This was just as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) told the Senator Matthew Urhogide-led committee that oil marketers abandoned the importation of petrol in the country because of the losses incurred from their inability to meet with the interest rates of banks in the country.
But the Executive Secretary of MOMAN, Mr Obafemi Olawoke, asked the federal government to pay the areas of subsidy claims owed its members between 2013 and 2015 and even more to interest banks to enable them resume importation of fuel into the country.
Though he did not mention the figure, he told the lawmakers that members of MOMAN were still owed subsidy claims which accrued from 2013 to 2015. According to him, due to this, members of the association are unable to import fuel into the country. “The banks are always adding their interest at the end of every month.
We had a promise from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that the aspect of interest will be stopped at a certain period of 2017 but that did not come to pass, so the banks at the end of every month are charging us interest,’’ Olawoke said. He said two out of six major marketers imported fuel into the country in 2017 to “cover some specific customer needs”.
“These are mainly those that have their foreign affi liates who could cover them in terms of dollar coverage,” Olawoke said. But his presentation did not go down well with members of the committee, as Dino Melaye, a lawmaker on the committee, angrily accused the marketers of conniving with NNPC to defraud federal government and Nigerians. Also, Bassey Akpan (Akwa Ibom North east) faulted the MOMAN boss of trying to mislead the committee into asking federal government to pay more subsidies to banks.
In his presentation, the Chief Financial Officer, NNPC, Mr Isiaka Razak who disclosed before the committee that the oil marketers abandoned the importation of petrol due to lack of losses, expressed worry that the task of importing fuel into the country was left in the hands of the NNPC alone.
“They cannot land it at a price for which they are going to sell and make profit that is the main reason they are not bringing in the product. ”
There is a loss element to it which the private sector is running away from but the NNPC is absorbing it and that is the basic summery of where we are,’’ Razak added
