The
Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on Saturday accused petroleum
products marketers of blackmail by masterminding the current fuel scarcity that has
threatened to ground the economy.
The Minister, who was speaking in Abuja, said it was shocking
that barely a week after she reached an agreement over N200
billion fuel claims, the marketers reneged and failed to continue selling
fuel to consumers.
Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala, who spoke of efforts
the government was making to ensure that the marketers’ claims were paid, said
apart from the N154 billion paid a fortnight ago, about N31 billion and N350
billion were paid to the marketers previously.
She said it was curious that despite these efforts by the government
in a year it was going through difficult times, the marketers were
showing so much bad faith.
The minister said after the N154 billion was paid and
the marketers claim up with a new request of N200 billion as their
outstanding claims, it was found out that about N159
billion was actually what they were asking for as exchange rate differential.
Consequently, she said it was agreed that a committee be set up
to verify the claims before the payment was be made.
The committee was headed by the Executive Secretary of the
Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Farouk Ahmed, with the
Director General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Abraham Nwankwo, as well
as two Directors-General from the Ministry as members.
“The marketers wanted me (Minister) to sign the claim for the
payment of N159 billion and I said no, because Nigerians
don’t know what is exchange rate differential. We had to call those
agencies responsible to verify those claims in view of the fact that there
has been so much fraud and manipulations in the claims by oil marketers,”
Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala said.
“We have to be very careful, so that Nigerians would not accuse
us of giving away their money for something that was not real.
“It is the demonstration of the highest sense of bad faith that
after we had an agreement during the meeting and they said everything had been
settled, only for the marketers to turn around the very next day to say a
complete opposite thing.
“They next day they shut down all the filling stations, except
few of them who opened to sell. What does that tell you?
“My conclusion is that the marketers just want Nigerians to
suffer. Anyone who thinks that this whole thing has to do with the money being
owed is not being truthful. If it was so, the marketers would have waited for
the verification to be completed.
“It is wrong to shut down their stations and depots a day after
reaching an agreement with government just to make a lot money from the black
market. Nigerians should not be blackmailed. Nigerians should not allow
themselves to be blackmailed by the oil marketers,” the Minister said.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Contact Us
Email: publisher@absolutehearts.com
Phone/whatsapp: +2348027922363