Read how Corruption in PPMC is one of the major causes of the Lingering fuel scarcity in Nigeria [DETAILS]

In recent weeks, Nigerians have seen an increase in the prices of petroleum products, as well as queues at fuel stations across the country.Nigerians are heavily dependent on fuel for the different socio-economic activities they carry out daily, hence the harsh suffering the scarcity has inflicted on the populace.

While the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has repeatedly assured the citizenry that the fuel situation will not last, it appears to get worse daily as the price of the product keeps rising at the black markets while scarcity reigns at the fuel stations.

According to a source in the petroleum industry, the fuel scarcity is caused by incompetence and corruption in the Pipelines And Products Marketing Company Limited (PPMC), an agency of the NNPC charged with security of supply of petroleum products imported by the NNPC to the domestic market.

While noting the dire effect of the fuel scarcity on business, our source stated that: “Don’t be fooled by anyone. How can this never ending fuel scarcity make sense? The ongoing hardship in the nation due to the persistent fuel queues is primarily caused by the PPMC leadership.”

Speaking further, the source said officials within the agency revealed that contrary to widespread belief that PPMC doesn’t import petrol, the company actually imported 24 cargoes of petrol products in January and another 25 cargoes in February.

A total of about 800, 000 to 1 million Metric Tonnes (MT) was imported every month by both the PPMC and independent marketers under the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) scheme, the source said.

This quantity of crude imported into the country can easily kill off the fuel crisis beleaguering the country, however, this is not the case because of the alleged corruption and incompetence in the PPMC, wherein petrol products are sent to selected private depots instead of PPMC depots for onward transfer to Independent Petroleum Marketer of Nigeria (IPMAN) and Major Oil Marketers Association Nigeria (MOMAN) depots.

These private depots, according to our source, are holding the country to ransom as they lack the ‘substantial retail network’ and are also selling the products at prices above the N86.50 stipulated by the federal government.

“MOMAN with over 40% of retail stations were left with no product to distribute,” the source said.
Sources within the industry also disclosed that with the level of incompetence showed by officials at PPMC, “this administration is seen to support the increasing disregard for the government regulated price by these marketers.”

Many wonder why President Muhammadu Buhari, who also doubles as the Minister of Petroleum Resources, is yet to take action considering that this isn’t the first time the PPMC has displayed poor understanding of oil distribution in the country.

“There has been a call for a probe into how the product imported by NNPC has been distributed yet nothing has been done,” another source says.It would be recalled that YNaija had earlier reported that the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, announced that the NNPC would be broken down to 30 companies.

It remains to be seen how the federal government plans to manage the new companies considering the difficulty previous and current administrations have had, in managing the NNPC alone.