Fuel Scarcity: Nigerians woke up to the last Monday of November 2022 ushering in the last month of the year 2022 with an outcry of 2022 and to make the matter worse, petroleum marketers urged Nigerians to clear their minds of any hope of dousing the situation this yuletide season.
“Recently, there have been a lot of charges that marketers pay. There are some charges that the NNPC adds to the pump price, but recently we were told to be prepared to bear freight charges and others,” a major marketer, told PUNCH Newspaper.
“These and more concerns have led to the crisis in the downstream sector and it may stretch till December or even beyond if nothing tangible is done to address the challenges,” the official added.
In another report, the Public Relations Officer of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Chief Ukadike Chinedu, said the unavailability of foreign exchange contributed to the current fuel scarcity.
In his words: “As a PRO of IPMAN in Nigeria, I can read the policies of the government towards the distribution of products in the downstream oil sector. You look at the exchange rate of the dollar to the naira, some foreign interruptions, and the price of diesel.
“All these are factors that definitely affect petroleum products’ prices since we are not producing refined products in Nigeria. We cannot sustain the importation of petrol.
“Otherwise, we will continue to see ghost queues every month and this may continue till the end of this year. The major solution now is to speed up the repairs of our refineries. However, we are meeting and looking for quick interventions.”
Whose gains is it when there is fuel scarcity?
Having a dysfunctional refinery is a major blow that has contributed to the never-ending fuel scarcity in the country.
At the current state of refineries in Nigeria, they can only produce 12 million litres of petroleum products, and even at full capacity, the supply from the refineries will only take care of at least 50 percent of the 45-60 million litres the NNPC claimed we consume daily.
It is such a pity that despite the large sum of money budgeted and spent by the government over the years on maintenance, the functional states of the refineries remain nothing to write home about.
While the government has sought intervention and issued 18 licenses to private investors since 2008, none of them have built any new facility on the ground to help solve the fuel crisis.
Despite the agreement by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allied countries to raise the price of crude oil in the international market which is meant to be a piece of good news to Nigeria is actually a bad one because it directly impacts the amount in which petroleum products will be imported by marketers into the country.
As if the increase in price is not enough, the recent CBN policy on forex has made it difficult for Nigerians to access forex for international transactions, while the CBN has blamed different groups of people from Aboki FX which has been shut down to Nigerian students seeking education abroad.
The Apex bank hasn’t been bold enough to take responsibility for having a bad and scarce forex market as well as initiating bold plans to end the skyrocketing values of the dollar over the naira.
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has been a key figure in not quenching the fire of the fuel crisis. The NNPC has not been the best of planners because they lack in their responsibility of doing enough due diligence, in terms of advance planning and monitoring of the stock of fuel at the depots to know when they would run dry and ensure that fresh orders were placed on time to replenish depleted stocks.
The effect on the part of NNPC has always led to shortages, which always triggers ripples of panic buying by consumers perpetually unsure for how long the scarcity would last.
Even with the poor planning and inadequate supply by NNPC, a significant volume is being diverted by corrupt officials who connive with marketers and transport owners to divert allocations from depots either to hoard in underground tanks to create artificial scarcity or smuggle to neighboring countries to earn higher profits.
This scarcity crisis always leads to the collapse of multiple business sectors collapsing as the transporters will be in queues for long hours and this will automatically hike the prices of fares.
Also as most businesses rely on generating plant that uses petrol or diesel as fuel, they are forced to either close down or also increase the price of their services and goods to be able to float above the murky waters.
The real people who profit from the fuel crisis are just like those who make a profit in the war times and this include, NNPC top officials, private investors, marketers, smugglers, and transporters leaving the poor Nigerians trying to make ends meet to survive and thereby collapsing the economy.
The Central Bank of Nigeria is also to blame as they play an indirect role that gives way for the industry to see more profit by exploiting the poor.
