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APPEARINGLY embarassed and irritated by the country's lingering petrol scarcity, the Department of State Services, DSS, yesterday issued a 48-hour deadline to all stakeholders in the fuel supply chain to restore normal supply of petroleum products at officially approved rates across the country or face the consequences of their actions.
The DSS warned that anyone found acting as a saboteur to the supply of petroleum products in the country after the deadline would be treated as a threat to national security by the security agency and would face the full force of the law.
This decision was reached following a strategic meeting of the DSS, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, major marketers, and depot owners, tanker drivers and independent marketers at the DSS headquarters in Abuja on Thursday.
Briefing journalists at the end of the meeting, Spokesman for DSS, Dr. Peter Afunanya, said: “We were clear and direct in telling the stakeholders in the fuel distribution system that enough is enough and that whatever is causing the scarcity of petroleum products in the country must be resolved immediately as Nigerians have the right to see and buy fuel at the official price at all times.
“We also made it clear to them that the government will no longer tolerate any form of scarcity since the NNPCL and all the parties involved agree that there is sufficient fuel in the depots across Nigeria and that those who may want to question our involvement in the issue should note that it touches on our core mandate of national security and wellbeing of Nigerians.
“We sounded strong warning to all those concerned that it was no longer going to be business as usual in the petroleum supply system and that anyone who is obstructing the distribution of fuel will be made to face the full weight of the law and that such elements would be treated as enemies of Nigeria.
“That going forward, the DSS is to carry out operations across the country to deal decisively with those obstructing the distribution of petroleum products to Nigerians at approved official rate.
“That it is our core mandate to detect and prevent threats to national security and that we are also charged with the responsibility of investigating national crimes and economic sabotage and that if that is established, we will go all out to fish out those involved and dealt with them in accordance with the laws of Nigeria.
“One of the major takeaways from the meeting was that NNPCL has more than 1.9 billion litres in stock which is enough to last through the yuletide and beyond, a figure duly confirmed by all the stakeholders in the supply chain,” Afunanya said.
Among the resolutions reached at the meeting were: “Henceforth, NNPCL is to continue to make fuel available to marketers especially Independent Petroleum Markers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, improve its distribution channels and network and to sell the products at approved ex-depot price to all marketers to impact positively on the marketers across the country, MOMAN is to review daily supply with NNPCL and to remove any form of bottleneck that may affect supply to all outlets in the system.”
“It was also resolved that marketers and tanker drivers were to provide 24-hour services while the DSS was to monitor compliance with the decisions reached and to deal with any form of sabotage.
“NNPCL and others gave a strong commitment to ensure fuel availability now, during the yuletide and beyond by ensuring 24-hour logging while depot owners agreed to also open for business 24 hours with improved security to be provided by the DSS and others.