The Senate Committee on Petroleum Downstream is blaming the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and oil marketers over the short supply of petroleum products in the country.
Committee Chairman, Senator Kabiru Marafa, stated this on Monday in Gusau during an oversight assignment on fuel crisis in the country.
Marafa, accompanied by committee member Senator Abdullahi Danbaba, said the investigation was part of the assignment of the Committee by Senate President Bukola Saraki.
“I have directed all members of this committee to go back to their constituencies to investigate the problem at the grassroots so that we can take appropriate measures to address the scarcity,” said Marafa.
“We visited the NNPC zonal depot, Gusau, to find out the quantity of fuel supply to the depot and we noticed a short supply of the commodity.
“We are going to present our findings to the Senate. It is very disturbing to see the suffering faced by people due to fuel scarcity in the country.
“We question the NNPC over this issue because the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru, said they had doubled the quantity of daily supply of the product, but it is not available to the public.
“Another unfortunate thing is the attitude of our filling station owners who sell this commodity to the public; they are involved in one or two malpractices.
”In fact, out of the filling stations we visited only two have complied with the government directives in this regard,” he said.
Marafa commended the state Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) field office on ensuring compliance at the filling stations.
The Senator urged the DPR to sanction filling stations involved in hoarding and selling above the approved government price of N145 per litre.
(Source: NAN)