Fuel scarcity hits Abuja, Kano
- Senate probes refineries' repair
From Adamu Abu (Kano), Mohammed Abubakar and Azimazi Momoh Jimoh (Abuja)
LONG queues have returned to filling stations in Kano and Abuja, as scarcity of petroleum products hit the cities.
Also, the Senate Committee on Petroleum resources (Downstream) has begun investigation into the circumstances that led to the poor production capacities of the nation's four refineries.
The fuel scarcity in Kano was occasioned by the strike embarked upon by the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) and the northern zone of National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO).
The situation has led to a sudden hike in the price of fuel which now goes for N1000 per gallon just as the situation has equally led to over 500 per cent hike in the prices of transportation within the metropolis.
A sizeable number of government and private sector workers trekked long distances to work while others who could neither trek nor pay the high fares remained at home.
Among others, members of the associations embarked on the strike to protest recent decision by the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) to withdraw the N1 bridging allowances.
NARTO joined the strike on Monday in solidarity with IPMAN.
In Abuja, workers yesterday experience a new round of hardship.
Most of them had to trek long distances to get to their homes. Most of the filling stations visited by The Guardian last night witnessed long queues.
As at 6 p.m. yesterday, most of the workers, who had closed from work as early as 4p.m. were seen literally stranded as efforts to get vehicles to their homes proved herculean.
To unravel the reasons for the sorry state of the refineries, the Senate committee is conducting a public hearing to ascertain how the money voted for the refineries' Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) was spent.
At a pre-public hearing meeting with one of the contractors handling the TAM project, the committee headed by Senator Emmanuel Azu Agboti stated that among the issues the probe exercise would address are:
- how many refineries have we in Nigeria and their locations?
- what are the installed capacity of those refineries?
- why are these refineries incapable of meeting national expectations?
- which companies are involved in the contract for Turn Around Maintenance? and
- why is it that after billion of dollars have been invested in the TAM, there is nothing to show by way of proper functioning of the said refineries?"
In a statement at the meeting, the contractor which handled the TAM of Kaduna Refinery between 1998 and 2003, Total Nigeria Plc led by it Managing Director, Mr. Christian De Chosieres, declared that the total contract sum for the project it handled in Kaduna Refinery was $214.98 million.
The Independent Consolidation Co-ordinating Committee for cushioning the effects of increases in prices of petroleum products declared yesterday that unless urgent measures were taken, the country would soon witness a serious fuel scarcity.
Addressing a press conference yesterday, the committee led by its chairman and Deputy Senate President, Ibrahim Mantu, said that the strike embarked upon by the Northern Chapel of IPMAN was one of those threats to regular supply of fuel.
Mantu also mentioned the ban on the use of private jetties for the transportation of petroleum products as another serious threat.
He called on relevant authorities, including the Ministry of Transport, to find urgent solutions to the problems.
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