As Nigerians continue to struggle under the weight of fuel scarcity which has affected several economic and human activities in the country, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, on Saturday, announced that the fuel crisis will end in the next two days.
Kachikwu, who stated this while making a tour of petrol stations in Abuja, assured Nigerians that he will work with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to confront the issue of foreign exchange that is adversely affecting major oil marketers.
The minister, who also doubles as the Group Managing director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), noted that the NNPC has increased supply across the country.
Kachikwu stated that: “We have enough coming in. Obviously the two days of strike hit us very badly but we are flooding in, getting an average of 300 trucks a day into Abuja; it’s going to take a bit of while for the queues to finish but we are hoping that between the next one-two days we should have the queues all disappear because we are continuing to pump in, while a lot of the stations are open 24 hours a day.”
“I apologise to Nigerians for all the pains; nobody wants to see people spend two hours on the fuel queue. The president is very bothered about the sight of people waiting for fuel.”
On the issue of foreign exchange for oil marketers, Kachikwu said: “We are doing everything we can; NNPC is taking the whole nation on its shoulders while majors are really not bringing in product; but we are working long term solutions to majors to now begin to go back to importation lane and be able to service their own outlets rather than us servicing our outlets, independents, majors and servicing everybody; its a lot of wear and tear on our capabilities as a status.”
“Long term obviously we have got to systemically look at how do you prepare this nation in circumstances where there are emergencies to be able to respond; we are obviously not getting that as well as we should.”
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