By Cornelius Umoh, Blessing Isong And Idorenyin Umoren
The Commissioner for Petroleum Resources in Cross River State, Hon. Itaya Nyong has said the current Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), better known as fuel scarcity in the country, is as the result of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine since Nigeria’s lack of strategic reserve.
Hon. Nyong made the assertion while appearing as guest on topical radio program “The Dialogue With Agba Jalingo,” which airs Sundays, 6:15 – 7pm, where he urged Nigerians to endure.
He said the scarcity is observed due to adulterated product imported into the country. “For this particular scarcity, it is as a result of a rejected about two hundred million liters of petroleum products that was adulterated by excessive addition of methanol; it is the major cause of it. The issue we have here is that, it appears there are no facilities to blend or mix the depot owners; even NNPC does not seem to have the facilities where these products will be blended.
“But we have a problem in this country; we don’t have a strategic reserve because the 1.9 million liters we are about to have cannot last longer than the 32 days so it means with the crisis in Russia, the bulk of the product we have in this country came from Russia. With this crisis we are hoping that it is something that might take weeks or months to get through.”
He inferred that the current scarcity is aided by depot owners who hoard the commodity in a bid to sell at exorbitant prices.
“The issue here is that depot owners are hoarding, we don’t know the problem they have that they are not releasing. You know the Nigerian mentality, whenever something like this comes up there’s this attitude to hoard, to create scarcity and exploit Nigerians, that is basically what is happening now. We are just hoping and praying that God will touch the hearts of Nigerians, especially depot owners to understand that we are all Nigerians; you cannot have enough money on earth, that is just the truth and whatever you have, be contented.”
On Petrocross, he said ” We had made projections for a strategic reserve of about two billion liters of petroleum products in the country. If you check Nigeria is the only country in the world that doesn’t have a strategic reserve. The moment you have any shortage of fuel or glitch, that is it.”
On his part, the State Operations Controller, Department of Petroleum Resources, Mr. George Ene-Ita however, refutes the assertion, revealing that his department has been at forefront to checkmate hoarding.
“Fuel has been coming in so it is just for people to be patient, I will advise there shouldn’t be panic buying. We are doing everything within our capacity to ensure this crisis passes by,” adding that “there is no hoarding, absolutely no hoarding at all.”
Mr. George Ene-Ita who was on transit and couldn’t join the program on time apologized as he maintained that “I’m not in position to speak for Nigeria, my bosses are to do that.”
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