•FG to pay N30bn Forex Differentials To Oil Marketers
The Federal Government yesterday said plans have concluded pay N30 billion exchange rate differentials to oil marketers for importation of petroleum into the country.
The Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala made the disclosure while addressing newsmen shortly after a meeting with oil marketers.
Dr. Iweala noted that the amount would take care of the fluctuation between the time of the order of the product and when the payment was made.
She further explained that what is being paid as differentials is not for products that were currently imported but rather it was for differentials that had been accumulated in the past.
Okonjo-Iweala noted that with the financial side, the banking side and the physical delivery side have being taken care off, “the queues will dissipate and the situation will begin to stabilize.
The Finance Minister also said that with the payment of over N320.8 billion Sovereign Debt Notes (SDNs) in December to oil marketers as a guarantee of subsidy payment and the settlement of another outstanding N185 billion for petroleum products, the queues will be over by the weekend.
“We will be issuing sovereign debt notes to them so that the banks will know that the government has undertaken. We also agreed to meet the foreign exchange and interest cost which they were agitated about,” she said.
For his part, the Executive Secretary of the Major Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) Obafemi Olawore disclosed that MOMAN has since the beginning of the week supplied 267 and 226 trucks of petroleum products to Lagos and Abuja respectively.
According to Mr. Olawore, “we are hopeful that by the weekend the queues will ease out.”
The MOMAN Executove Secretary said that an additional 3 cargoes representing 100.5 liters is presently been discharged by his association.
“It’s easing because of the massive movement we have been doing in the last two days. We have the volumes available and we are moving. Abuja will take 3 to 4 days for the trucks to get here. But we are hopeful that by Friday we should see a lot of improvement.
Speaking also, the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, insisted that there was no need for Nigerians to press the panic button as every obstacle has been tackled.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has assured the general public that all queues at filling stations across the country would disappear before the end of this week.
The Group Executive Director Commercial and Investment, Aisha Abdulrahman, gave the assurance in Abuja when the Supervising Minister of Information, Chief Edem Duke led a team of reporters for on-the-spot assessment of the situation in the filling stations.
A statement from the office of the supervising Minister of information, said the glitch that disrupted fuel supply in the last few days had been addressed as the NNPC now had adequate stock that could last between twenty and thirty days.
It urged filling stations to complement NNPC retail outlets by selling petrol for twenty-four hours in order to clear the fuel queues across the country.
The statement adds that in his remarks, the Supervising Minister of Information, Chief Edem Duke denied accusations by the political opposition that there was fuel scarcity, saying all the depots across the country were wet with fuel but the queues in the filling stations were as a result of speculation and panic buying.
It said that Duke berated the political opposition for cashing in on the fuel situation to score cheap political point and assured that the Jonathan Administration would remain responsive to the welfare and economic well-being of the citizens.