The Minister of State for
Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, on Monday said the trucks
conveying Premium Motor Spirit across the country were being diverted to
Cameroon and Chad.
Kachikwu, who stated this in
Lagos at a town hall meeting, said the fuel scarcity had persisted mainly
because the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) could not track any
of the trucks being used to convey the product to filling stations across the
country. Kachikwu however, said his ministry was working towards
installing trackers on each truck and registering the depots and filling
stations they were meant to supply in a bid to curb diversion of the product.
Kachikwu also noted that the NNPC
had largely dealt with the shortfall in supply resulting from subsidy debt to
the marketers and foreign exchange scarcity, and had, by itself, substantially
improved supply of products. He, however, described this as a short-term
solution, saying the private sector “needs to drive this business… because
ultimately, without doing that, we are never going to find a solution to this
problem.”