LAGOS — Following the lingering scarcity of kerosene (DPK) across the country which has led to high prices of the product, President Goodluck Jonathan has ordered the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Engr. Austen Oniwon to urgently find a lasting solution to the problem even as he directed that anybody or group found to be responsible for this hardship on Nigerians should be immediately sanctioned.

As a result, the Minister and her entourage are expected to hold strategic meetings in Lagos with various stakeholders in the downstream sector as a way of turning the situation around before the handover date of May 29, 20011 and also hand down the President’s directive that any stakeholder who refuses to ensure availability of products at government directed prices as expected would be severely sanctioned.

The President, according to news sources, was irked by the fact that wit all the attention given to the downstream sector by the government and the billions of tax payers money going into importation of DPK, Nigerians still have to queue to buy it at exorbitant prices and this is seen as a  national embarrassment which requires urgent intervention.

Vanguard checks, however, reveal that the reason for the high prices of the pump might not be unconnected with the backdoor transactions which has almost become the order of the day at various NNPC depots across the country.
An operator who poke to Vanguard on the condition of anonymity said the problem lies with the government which has refused to liberalise the downstream sector to make room for general importation of kerosene by all marketers, as well as allowing the Petroleum Subsidy Fund (PSF) applicable to kerosene importers too.

In some of the major petrol stations visited at press time, it was discovered that the product is available, but sells at about N140.00 a litre, while the independent and black marketers sell as high as N160 and N200 respectively.

Only a fortnight ago, the management of NNPC strongly dismissed the rumours that the Federal Government has concluded plans to hike the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), which led to unnecessary build up of fuel queues in Abuja and other parts of the country.

Image maker of the corporation, Dr. Levi Ajuonuma had disclosed that the NNPC had well over 39 days sufficiency of PMS and other petroleum products in stock, and this presumably included Kerosene, even as he described the rumoured hike in fuel price as baseless and unfounded and urged the Petroleum Tanker Owners to release their trucks for loading of petroleum products at various depots and loading facilities in Lagos now that the elections have been rounded up across the country.

However, Nigerian have continued to groan under the pressure of scarcity of kerosene and its subsequent hike in price.  A close source in one of the major marketing companies who pleaded anonymity confirmed that NNPC does not give products to major marketers. “You can say it publicly anywhere that NNPC does not give us products.

I stand to be corrected, NNPC does not allocate product to major markers, so if a dealer buys his products from a third party certainly you will expect him to sell as he has bought.

If the President is concerned about this anomaly now, then it is a very good step but the fact remains that he should check what the daily consumption rate of kerosene is and what is the volume of daily supply, im sure he’ll discover a huge gap, and you will agree with me that when ever there is a problem of supply, a lot of issues comes into play and the hardest thing to control at such instance is price.” he said