Monday, 3 March 2014
He said that Abuja had also witnessed such situation in the previous week and the special task force comprising NNPC, PPPRA, and the DPR went out to ensure that all the lines in Abuja were decimated.
He then stated that the NNPC did not believe that there was fuel scarcity in Lagos, but rather they believed that people were hoarding because some think that Government was going to raise the price of petrol, an assumption he said “there is no truth in”.
“Government is not, as far as we know, going to raise any price, and retailers who have fuel in their tanks should please release it for people to buy.”
The Executive Secretary of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, MOMAN, Obafemi Olaore, had been quoted to have said, “The Federal Government through the PPPRA just released the 1st quarter allocation of fuel importation to petroleum marketers who will now commence importation of the product”. He also said that importers should have brought in the products in the next one month.
Mr. Farouk, in his response to the statement, confirmed the said release to have been done on February 20, but added that there are already vessels on the West African waters waiting to come into Nigeria and he did not feel the marketers would delay in getting the products into the country.
He insisted that the fuel scarcity in Lagos had nothing to do with the importation of the products but rather the deliberate act of the filling stations to hoard the product, providing instances as experienced by the special task force to validate the view.
He promised that as the task force has successfully cleared the queues in Abuja, it would do same in Lagos and other places starting from Monday, March 3.
