BY OLAPEJU OLUBI
Petroleum products marketers on the platform of Natural Oil and Gas Suppliers Association of Nigeria (NOGASA) have advisedo consumer’s especially those up north, to prepare for a fresh round of fuel scarcity as they are battling several challenges threatening to throw them out of business and create energy scarcity.
The National President of NOGASA, Mr. Benneth Korie, at a media briefing in Abuja on Monday, listed failed roads, kidnapping and killing of tanker drivers, worsened foreign exchange scarcity, tumbling naira, lack of functioning refineries and other issues as the greatest challenges suffocating them and the nation at large.
According to him, the naira has tumbled to an all-time low of about N950/$1 in the parallel market, amid scarcity in the I&E window, thus making it difficult to sustain importation and sales with the current template.
He added that the roads were terrible, especially the Warri-Abuja stretch, saying urgent interventions were needed to make it passable.
“There’s a need to address that road issue. If not, we may have problems bringing in products. If you observe, look around now, you see some filling stations are empty. It’s as a result of that road, they can’t move”, he said.
Korie explained that failed roads have detained drivers and trucks for upward of two weeks.
He added: “The Warri-Abuja road is a no-go area. Our trucks have been there for the past two weeks, they can’t move.
“They kidnapped our drivers. Killed some of our drivers, vandalized our trucks, took the products out.
“Who is paying? Nobody, we’re losing money and here we are talking. Last year, we had this same problem at this same place. I thought that they would do something about it by now.
“I have personally spent about N500 million fixing roads. I have evidence.
“One of my drivers spent over eight days on that axis. I couldn’t recognize him when he came back. Every time I speak to you, it’s about roads. You import trucks, you import cars, you use dollars to import them. Then the road is bad, what do you expect? It will not last. And that’s why you’re seeing all of us every day we’re importing cars, trucks every day. The mechanics, there is a limit they can repair. But if you fix the road, you will see that the rate that we import spare parts and import vehicles into this country will reduce”, he explained.
On foreign exchange scarcity, the NOGASA President described it as a serious challenge that needs urgent actions.
“It’s a serious development and we must take action. Call the BDCs, call the bank’s MDs to sit with the CBN and come out with one price, one uniform price that will be okay for them. So that at the end of the day they will come out and say, this is how much the dollar will be. I know they will tell you, the demands and supply aspects and all that. This is not our money. You can sit down and say, look, this is how much we will collect. If you want to sell to us, this is how much we’ll buy from you. And if you want to sell, don’t sell more than this price. And that way, they can control the dollar. Yes, Mr. President, say free the naira. But the way it’s going, it will destroy a lot of things for us”.
On moribund refineries, Korie advised the federal government to look inwards as Nigeria boasts of capable engineers that could fix them.
“We have good engineers, good engineers. Get them together. Let them go to these refineries. For how many years now we’ve been talking about refineries. Let them go there and check. It’s human beings that built these refineries? And we have these people in Nigerians. They’re all Nigerians. We have them. They can go there and fix it. There’s nothing wrong. Show them the problem. Even though we know it’s old, we can fix it.
“It’s not about depending on foreigners. Every time, billions of naira is spent, billions for how many years now, on one refinery. Look at what it’s doing to us today. Yes, we removed the subsidy before fixing the refineries. This is the problem we are facing today because of that”, he lamented.
