Major petroleum marketers in Nigeria have warned of an impending scarcity of petrol if the Federal Government fails to pay their outstanding subsidy.
Their warning came prior to the Finance Minister’s announcement that the government will pay the marketers their outstanding in 24 hours.
According to the marketers, the Federal Government was owing them in excess of 200 billion Naira and they could no longer afford to continue importing the product.
Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who spoke with reporters in Abuja, on Wednesday, said that all outstanding payments to the marketers will be resolved.
“On the issue of oil marketers, we have really been working with them and we have been dialoguing with them all along. We’ve paid 350 billion Naira in December, we paid them 31 billion Naira in foreign exchange differentials and by tomorrow (Thursday) we will be paying them 100 Naira billion for which we had earlier given them IOUs for as well as their interest rate differentials of 56 billion Naira.
“So, I am about to go and sign, to get that paid and I think that Nigerians can see that the government is making maximum effort to accommodate the oil marketers. They are also Nigerians, and they need to also cooperate with us,” the Finance Minister said.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala appealed to them to bear with the Federal Government, as it tries to prioritise its policies in the face of dwindling revenues.
She further explained that the government had in December 2014 paid the sum of 350 billion Naira to oil marketers, affirming that an additional 31 billion Naira in foreign exchange differentials had already been released.
