President Muhammadu Buhari has authorized the establishment of a 14-member committee to handle the country’s scarcity of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), often known as fuel.
The President, in his capacity as Minister of Petroleum Resources, will head the committee, with Mr Timipre Sylva, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, serving as the alternate chairman.
The task of the committee is to solve the issues in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry that are generating petrol scarcity in Nigeria. It will also watch petroleum goods, particularly gasoline, in order to determine daily national consumption and combat smuggling.
In October 2022, Sylva said that Nigeria was losing as least 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day to thieves. The minister stated this through Ambassador Gabriel Aduda, Permanent Secretary in the Petroleum Resources Ministry, who represented him during the 2002 Petroleum Training Institute graduation (PTI).
a statement issued by Sylva issued on Tuesday said the government won’t “allow misguided elements to bring untold hardship upon the citizenry and attempt to discredit government’s efforts in consolidating the gains made thus far in the oil and gas sector of the economy”.
It listed other members of the committee as the Minister of Finance and Permanent Secretary; Ministry of Petroleum Resources, National Economic Adviser to the President, Director-General, Department of State Services (DSS); Comptroller-General, Nigerian Customs Service (NCS); Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Member (EFCC), and Commandant-General, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).
The statement said the Steering Committee is composed of the Authority Chief Executive, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission; Nigerian Midstream and Member Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA); Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Group Chief Executive Officer, NNPC Limited, Special Advisor (Special Duties) to the Minister of State, Petroleum Resources while the Technical Advisor (Midstream) to the Minister of State Petroleum Resources will serve as Secretary.
Sylva stated that he had asked the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) to guarantee that the government-approved ex-depot and retail rates for PMS were strictly followed.
The DSS issued a 48-hour deadline to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), and other oil industry players in December 2022 to settle the gasoline crisis.
If the scarcity lasted beyond the deadline, the secret police promised to go after them, but the crisis followed Nigerians into the new year – 2023 – and has not abated since.
