The Federal Government on Thursday moved to avert a
nationwide fuel scarcity as it directed the Debt Management Office to pay
marketers all subsidy claims that had been verified.
The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, said the claims would be paid as soon as the Petroleum Products
Pricing and Regulatory Agency provided the supporting Sovereign Debt Notes.
She, however, did not disclose the
total amount to be paid to the marketers.
The oil marketers, operating under
the aegis of Depot and Petroleum Product Marketers Association, had threatened
to go on strike if their claims were not paid by Thursday.
Specifically, they vowed to suspend
fuel loading at the depots in Lagos and other parts of the country.
But the minister, in a statement by
her Senior Special Assistant on Communication, Mr. Paul Nwabuiku, on Thursday,
said there was no need for the marketers to go on strike since the government
was already addressing the subsidy payment issue.
The statement reads, “The
Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, has directed the Debt Management Office to pay marketers with
verified claims as soon as supporting Sovereign Debt Notes are provided by the
Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency.
“The directive is to reinforce the
Federal Government’s determination to ensure that there is no disruption in
fuel supplies across the country.”
The statement recalled that payments
based on verified claims resumed after a meeting of the Federation Accounts
Allocations Committee in June this year, and payments totalling N17bn were
made.
It also said, “To prevent overpayments,
verification of claims is a cornerstone of the procedures adopted by the
Federal Ministry of Finance for managing fuel subsidy payments.
“The minister clarified that
following the report of the Presidential Committee headed by Mr. Aigboje
Aig-Imoukhuede, it is clear that some marketers also owe government significant
sums of money and that government expects that these will be paid.”
The minister also said that the
review had produced a lot of useful details on what went wrong with the system
and what needed to be done to ensure improvement.
The review process started in
February when the Ministry of Finance and other relevant government agencies
held a meeting with bankers and marketers at the instance of President Goodluck
Jonathan.
This was followed by a session with
the accounting and auditing firms to re-evaluate their work.
It said, based on the review, the
services of the two audit and accounting firms responsible for certifying the
documents and claims of the marketers before payment were terminated.
Subsequently, a committee was set up
to verify oil subsidy claims, it added.
The Presidential Committee on
Verification and Reconciliation of Fuel Subsidy Payment, in its report, which
was submitted on Monday, revealed that 21 companies that participated in
subsidy payments were found culpable of fraudulent claims.
The report said that N21bn was
cleared leaving N382bn as the sum in contention, the basis for which the
committee recommended the process of recovery.