21st September, 2012
Nigeria’s Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) has invited top petroleum officials to a consultative meeting over the perennial scarcity of petroleum products across the country.
In a statement on Friday in Abuja, Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Magnus Abe (PDP-Rivers) said the summon was in respect of the “unacceptable” long queues at filling stations in Abuja and other parts of the country.
Those invited include the Petroleum Minister, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke and Mr Andrew Yakubu, the Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The Committee also invited Mr Reginald Stanley, the Executive Secretary, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) and other stakeholders in the petroleum downstream sector.
The meeting is scheduled to hold at the National Assembly Complex on September 27.
“We thought that the era of Nigerians queuing at filling stations for indeterminate hours to procure PMS and other petroleum products, was indeed gone forever.
“ It is, indeed, an embarrassment that precious man-hours are wasted in the quest to fulfil a basic need.
“What was initially perceived as a glitch in the distribution chain has now ballooned into queues in what now seems to be a gradual return to that inglorious era,” Abe said.
He said the committee would engage those in charge to ascertain the course and chart workable solutions to the challenges in the downstream sector.