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Senate to meet Emefiele on oil marketers’ access to Forex

By on December 8, 2015

The Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) will meet with the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, to find a lasting solution to the challenges oil marketing firms encounter accessing foreign exchange (forex) for the importation of petroleum products.

Speaking on Sunday during an assessment tour of NIPCO Plc’s terminal in Lagos, the chairman of the committee, Senator Uche Ekwunife, who led other members of the committee on the inspection tour, said the upper chamber would engage the central bank to open a special window for petroleum marketers to access forex for the importation of products.
She noted that the paucity of forex to fund the importation of petrol had hampered the efforts by government to ease fuel shortages across the country.

According to her, investigations by the committee had shown that the payment of subsidy claims alone would not guarantee the availability of products, as marketers are facing a herculean task accessing forex for the importation of products.

She noted however that most of them had opened several letters of credit with banks and were awaiting forex approval by the CBN.

She said the Senate would meet with the CBN governor to explore ways of making forex available to the marketers a matter of priority.

Ekwunife said members of her committee are concerned that marketers are still not importing petrol due to the challenges in the procurement of forex to bring in products.

“As soon as we get back to Abuja, we shall engage the top hierarchy of CBN to get a first hand report from them on how to address the paucity of forex to marketers as well as their plans on how to facilitate forex supply to them,” she said.

Nigerians, she said, were expecting relief after the passage of the Supplementary Appropriation Bill to pay subsidy claims to marketers, adding however that the products are not yet sufficient to guarantee continuous availability at all stations.

She commended NIPCO for blazing the trail among marketers by bringing in cargoes of petrol, even in the face of all the challenges facing the sector and pleaded with other marketers to emulate the company.

Ekwunife, whose committee was taken round MT CHAMPION, a vessel, which brought a second import cargo of petrol for the company, further stated that the committee embarked on the inspection yesterday to show the importance attached to finding a lasting solution to the recurring issue of fuel scarcity.

Earlier in his remarks, the Managing Director of the company, Mr. Venkataraman Venkatapathy, said the visit of the senators was historic for the company, as the second vessel imported by NIPCO, which berthed with about 37 million litres of petrol, started discharging on the day of the visit.
He said his company brought in the second cargo in pursuance of its pledge to support the government in improving the supply of petrol to filling stations.

According to him, the NIPCO depot has not only insisted on selling at the government official rate of N77.66K as ex-depot price, but has also successfully eliminated middlemen in and around the depot to avoid any form of racketeering.

Venkatapathy said the first vessel, which berthed about 10 days ago, had loaded out over 1,200 trucks destined for all the nooks and crannies of the country day and night for six days in a bid to ease fuel shortages.

The committee was also scheduled to visit Folawiyo, Capital Oil and Atlas Cove Depots.

 

[ThisDay]