Nigeria government: Fuel scarcity not ending anytime soon

Government says that they can’t end fuel scarcity now, On the meeting with President Buhari, he said It was basically to review the oil industry,  some of the concerns areas that he himself is trying to find joint solutions and

share thoughts.

He said that this is the first opportunity that the unions have had to spend a bit of time with him as a father. So we shared thoughts, areas of concerns and some solution potentials and agreed to collaborate and work together.

Asked on the concerns of the industry, he said," I will probably highlight a few areas of concerns.

He said that unions expressed worry over the fuel scarcity issue and wants a long time solutions to finally resolve this issue adding that they are also worried about the refineries and are thankful the government didn't sell the refineries without looking to work collaboratively with them to see how to make the refineries work.

"They are worried about the utilization of depots and how best to do that, they are worried about all kinds of logistics issues that plague the oil industry. They are worried about job loss in the sector arising from the position of majors who feel that the economy is giving rough end of the sticks and then try to whittle down staff.

They said that they are going to be working with the oil majors to ensure that we do not experience the kind of job loss that we are hearing has the potential to occur in the sector.

Kachikwu expressed confidence that the president was willing to work together with them to bring good jobs, tasking them, as agents of change within the respective areas where they work, to ensure that they continue to look out, contribute, take on the change on its head and make it happen also, and for recognising the difficulties this government had inherited.

 NUPENG president, Igwe Achese, said: "We had a successful meeting, quite interesting in terms of the emotional attachment of Mr. President on the issue of oil and gas sector and then challenges we are facing as a nation.

"We tabled the issue of fuel scarcity, the quick passage of the PIB and to see how the sector can bounce back economically and to make Nigerians smile again. Clearly we talked more on the corruption in the oil and gas sector, products allocations.

 Mr. President has assured that both NUPENG and PENGASSAN will continue to be part of the restructuring that he is going to make, to look into these issues and to make sure that scarcity is reversed at our filling stations.