….As Marketers Blame FX Shortfall For Product’s Scarcity
Barely three months after the President Bola Tinubu’s government addressed the lingering fuel scarcity problem in the downstream market, indications in the market since Tuesday showed that scarcity was gradually resurfacing in major cities of Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Ekiti and others with queues noticeable in filing stations in the affected states and the FCT.
Investigations by our correspondent across the states since Tuesday indicated that many fuel stations in Lagos and Abuja had stopped dispensing fuel while others were just selling at less than half of their installed capacity.
Largely, some filling stations in the FCT and Lagos had stopped dispensing fuel due to the unavailability of petrol
For instance, in our downstream market assessment in Lagos and the FCT showed that many filling stations in Abule Egba, Iyana Ipaja, Ikeja, Okokomaiko and a few in Victoria Island, Maryland and Ikorodu axis were no longer selling fuel just as the scarcity was noticeable in Lugbe, Kuje, Kubwa, Yanyan-Mararaba and Gwagwalada satellite towns.
Our findings in the Lagos and FCT downstream market further reflected that some Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s filling stations were not selling fuel while some independent marketers
had jacked up the their price to between N620 and N650 from between N568 and N585 in Lagos.
On Thursday, our correspondent confirmed that sale of fuel in Ekiti, Kano, Kaduna, Niger, Abia, Ondo, Edo and Anambra states had also remarkably dropped as queues were observed in many stations.
A passenger, who simply identified herself as Mummy Victoria at the Ado-Ekiti motor park, confirmed that “drivers have increased their fares due to petrol scarcity here since yesterday and as I speak with you now, Ado-Ekiti to Lagos fare has been increased by N500 per passenger.”
Reacting to the ugly situation in the downstream market, the Executive Secretary of the Major Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), Clement Isong, linked the shortfall in fuel supply which is affected the sale to foreign exchange (FX) scarcity and other logistics challenges associated with the lifting of products from depots and distribution nationwide.
He lamented that the deplorable condition of road networks from the South to the North, noting that this has led truck owners to incur huge financial losses as a result of accidents and mishaps.
Isong further clarified that the US dollar had crossed the N1000 threshold in the black market and that marketers were finding it very difficult source Forex from the official window, thereby putting serious pressures on marketers. . The unstable nature of the naira has continued to add more and more pressure on the business.
