Abubakar Yunus Abuja
The Federal Government disbursed N173,200,284,779bn for the equalisation of more than 11.6 billion litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) better known as petrol from 2019 to 2022, the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources has said.
The ministry led by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva stated this in a document presented on Tuesday on the ministry’s 2022 scorecard.
“11,622,926,494 litres (of PMS was) equalised. N173,200,284,779 (approx.) equalisation paid. 1,277 supplying vessels tracked. 25,525,688,042 litres of total PMS discharged,” the document partly read.
The data also showed that 66.7 million litres of PMS were the average daily sufficiency during the three-year period with total truck-out volume being 24,346,614,589 litres.
Petrol price equalisation is done by the government through the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) to ensure price uniformity of petroleum products via the reimbursement of marketers for trucking products to filling stations anywhere in Nigeria.
However, despite the huge amount spent, millions of Nigerians continue to groan as petrol scarcity spread across the country.
For months, vehicle owners especially in Lagos and Abuja have had a tough time getting petrol from filling stations. Whilst many outlets are closed, the few ones that are open sell the indispensable commodity for as high as N250 per litre from the uniform price of N169/litre.
The shortage of supply has led to long, grueling snake-like queues at the few open filling stations as motorists and business owners jostle to buy fuel while others resort to black market. The situation has also worsen traffic on major roads as vehicle owners block at least one lane to join queues to filling stations.
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