Stock Watch

IPMAN: Petrol scarcity may continue till June… ex-depot price now N240 a litre

By Abubakar Yunus Abuja

The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) says the current petrol scarcity may continue until subsidy is removed.

Mike Osatuyi, national operations controller, IPMAN, made this known in an interview with Journalists on Thursday.

After an 18-month extension, the federal government had said it would halt subsidy payments in June.

Speaking on Wednesday, Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer (GCEO), Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, said the country currently has no problems importing petroleum products.

But the setback, Osatuyi said, was that oil marketers failed to get their products at government-approved prices, which automatically pushed prices up at various pumps.

He said independent marketers were getting petrol from depots at N240 per liter, excluding transportation.

“We are getting the product between N230 per litre and N240 per litre, without transportation. If I get the product at N260 per litre, how much should I sell?” he said.

“It is a terrible situation and that is where we are. This is the status update from yesterday night.

“There is rent and arbitrage and they are not giving us the product at the official price even though they (government) promised to do so.”

Osatuyi added that “it is until the federal government removes subsidy on petrol that all these (petrol scarcity) will be over”.

However, he said there is hope that normalcy may return to the fuel situation in a few days’ time.

“There is hope in sight by the middle of the month but not immediately,” Osatuyi said.

He said the solution to the lingering situation was to deregulate the downstream sector in June, as promised by the government.

“The solution is to deregulate and all the contestants of the presidency have said they will deregulate and Buhari said they will deregulate by June too,” he said.

L-R: The Governor of Cross River State, Sen. Ben Ayade with the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), Prof. Mohammad Sani Haruna, at the foundation laying of the Agricultural Machinery and Equipment Development Institute (AMEDI) in Obudu, Cross River State yesterday. PHOTO: NASENI

LP campaign: Why Next International, Obi’s UK firm, was shut down

By Abubakar Yunus Abuja

The Labour Party (LP) presidential campaign team has explained why Next International Ltd, a company owned by Peter Obi, the standard bearer of the party, was shut down.

The company was said to have been closed by the United Kingdom government over its failure to submit its annual accounts.

Reacting, Diran Onifade, head of the Obi-Datti media office, in a statement on Thursday, said the company was voluntarily liquidated by its owners and not by the UK authorities as it was no longer in operation.

“When our principal insists that you go and verify facts about him and the information he dishes out, he didn’t say go and falsify facts,” Onifade said.

“For the record, the entity was 99 per cent owned by Next Nigeria International Ltd and established as its buying office in the 90s and Peter Obi was its CEO.

“At the time Peter Obi became governor of Anambra State in 2006, his wife assumed management of the winding down of the company and about one year ago requested that the company be dissolved under the voluntary strike off of the entity on grounds of dissolution and being inoperational, which is normal in winding up an entity.

“Peter Obi has consistently maintained that he is no longer involved in any Next-related business. The LP candidate by his antecedents in Anambra state for eight years, in private ventures where he held sway his records among the pack in this race for the Presidency, puts him miles ahead in moral rating.”