Minister raises Nigerians' hope again, says fuel scarcity will end next week

dimeji akinloye

April 20, 2016 10:19 PM

According to him, every part of the country will be adequately supplied with fuel by next week.

Nigeria's Oil Minister and OPEC president Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu addresses a news conference after a meeting of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna, Austria, December 4, 2015.

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources,

The Minister had previously assured that fuel queues at filling stations would disappearbetween April 6 and 7; but the situation has seemed to be insurmountable as there is no indication that the fuel crisis is near end.

He gave the new assurance on Wednesday, April 20, while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Kachikwu said that his ministry solving the problems inherited from the Goodluck Jonathan administration.

READ: NNPC receives 7 cargoes of petrol to ease shortage

He said: “As at today we are delivering about 1,200 trucks, by weekend we should be delivering same number of trucks. It will take a bit of days to even out but you can see improvement already.

“I hope by the end of next week with the refineries helping us to stay on course, every part of the country will get fuels.”

He noted the scarcity is caused by saboteurs who "rather than sell products send them into inter lands where they can sell at ridiculous prices. Therefore you are having these price distortions where people are making a lot of money.

“Some are internal and some are external, but the truth is that the marketers trying to make quick returns on their investments wrongly,” he said.

To ensure the hike in pump price is stopped, Kachikwu said the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has been asked to deploy officials, noting that it is only through price stabilization that the queues will disappear.

dimeji akinloye