Petrol Scarcity: Marketers in Closed Door Meeting with Okonjo Iweala

Recently, Nigeria suffers another era of Fuel scarcity. The price of food stuffs and transportation has drastically increased due to fuel scarcity. To address the issue, the Minister of Finance Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala is set to meet with Petroleum product marketers today in Abuja.
It has been a back and forth argument since last week on the outstanding indebtedness of the government to marketers as the minister said they are being owed N131bn but the marketers insist that it is N200bn after last weeks payment of N154bn.
The minister said;

“As you know, we paid N156bn recently, N100bn of the principal payment that we owe them and then we paid N56bn interest rate and some remaining exchange rate differentials. Prior to that, we had just paid N31bn exchange rate differentials. So, at the time we paid that last week, what we had outstanding was N98bn.”

“As of now, since we made the announcement last week, it has now risen from N98bn to N131bn outstanding in principal payment. And they are now making a demand of N200bn and I ask them what is the balance for?”

The Executive Secretary, Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, Mr Thomas Olawore said,

The minister agreed to meet us tomorrow (Monday) to discuss how the balance of N200.2bn will be paid.

“We will explain to her that it is N200.2bn. The PPPRA is there as the middle party and will be able to establish the truth based on the agreed template.”

Olawore confirmed that the tanker owners and drivers had temporarily suspended their strike and commenced lifting of products because of the appeal that the marketers made to them following the payment of part pf the debt owed.
So hopefully, queues will reduce soon...