Kachikwu Vows To End Fuel Scarcity

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, has as­sured Nigerians that the current fuel scarcity would not extend to the yuletide.This is just as Nigerian In­dependent Petroleum Com­pany, NIPCO Plc, one of the oil marketing companies, restated its commitment to import more

petroleum product cargoes to augment supplies from the Nigeria National Petroleum Corpo­ration, NNPC.Kachikwu, who gave the assurance yesterday while on tour of oil depots in La­gos, noted that
December is a critical month in terms of the demand for products to enable movement across the country, adding that govern­ment would take all neces­sary steps to avoid products shortfall during the month.He said: “We need to put in place foolproof mea­sures to ensure that stations across the nooks and cran­nies of the country are wet, to guarantee easy access at government-approved rates even as the Directorate of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has been directed to ensure strict compliance to the N87 per litre regime at all filling stations.The Minister apologised to Nigerians on the current scarcity, saying that every step is being taken to end it. While acknowledging the support of NIPCO for its commencement of prod­uct importation, Kachikwu urged other marketers to commence importation of products as all pending obligations to them in the realm of subsidy payments, and other ancillary commit­ments were being fulfilled by the government.