The All Progressives Congress (APC) has said the real causes of the
debilitating fuel scarcity across the country is the looting of the
$12 billion domestic gas fund under President Goodluck Jonathan’s
watch, as well as the Administration’s failure to pay fuel subsidy and
the cost of interests on bank loans to oil marketers, thus making it
impossible for them to begin another round of importation of refined
petroleum products.
In
a statement issued in Dubai on Tuesday by its National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the PDP and the
Jonathan Administration decided to divert attention from those
problems by accusing the opposition of being responsible for the
scarcity – a most laughable and irresponsible statement by a sitting
government that is always so eager to blame everyone but itself for
the nation’s woes.
It recalled that the self-styled Coordinating Minister of the Economy
and Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala had, in February, promised to
pay all subsidies owed to the marketers then in the sum of N264
billion, along with the accrued interest.
APC said, however, that the failure to meet this obligation has made
it impossible for the oil marketers, who are being owed heavily, to
finance another round of products importation.
”The truth is that this profligate government has run Nigeria
aground, and the oil sector, whether upstream or downstream, has
particularly suffered hugely. The quantity of petroleum products that
was imported has almost been fully consumed, without fresh products
being brought in to augment supplies that have now fallen well below
re-order level
”The implication is that in addition to worsening power supply,
crumbling prices of oil at the international market, weakening Naira
and unprecedented corruption, Nigerians – who routinely provide their
own electricity to power their homes and business, now have to face
another round of government-imposed hardship with the ongoing fuel
scarcity,” the party said.
It said the fuel crisis would not have reached the stage it is in now had
the $12 billion domestic gas project fund not been looted under
President Jonathan’s watch. This is because, with the project being
executed, many vehicles, cooking stoves and generators would have been
converted to use gas to reduce the importation of PMS, diesel and
kerosene, and gas would have been available to fire the gas turbines
at power stations while more power would have been delivered to the
national grid
APC accused President Jonathan of sabotaging the domestic gas project
started by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, with the $12
billion cash call provisions for gas development for domestic power
generation looted under his (President Jonathan) watch.
”Late President Yar’Adua made the first allocation of $1.5 billion
for this project in 2009. The amount was not spent at the time of his
death in 2010. However, direct outlays through annual cash calls
continued to be credited to the project account so much so that by
December 2014, $12 billion had been accumulated in the same account.
”Had this project been successfully implemented as envisaged, had the
funds made available for the project not been looted by the rapacious
cabal that is holding Nigeria by the jugular, power generation would
have improved with uninterrupted gas supply to power the turbines at
power station, while the domestic consumption of PMS, diesel and
kerosene would have reduced, with an increasing number of vehicles,
cooking stoves and power generators being converted to use gas instead
of PMS, diesel or kerosene,” the party said.
It also slammed the Jonathan Administration for its inability or
unwillingness or both to secure power installations from contrived
sabotage.
”For a federal government that is in control of one million people
under arms (military, police, civil defence corps, etc), and one that
has spent in excess of 4 trillion Naira on security, there is no
justifiable reason why power installations could not be secured
against sabotage,” APC said.
The party said the real saboteurs and indeed those who have pushed
Nigeria to another sorry state of fuel scarcity are those who have
stolen the money earmarked for gas gathering, processing and
transportation for domestic power production, and Nigerians know who
and where those people are.
It said Nigerians must be wondering whether those who accused the APC
of being behind the fuel shortage have their heads properly screwed to
their bodies, because the accusation marks a new low in the sad saga
of the Jonathan Administration.
”They (Nigerians) must be wondering when the APC took over the
running of the NNPC, when the APC took charge of subsidy payment and
why the opposition should become the easy scapegoat of an ineffectual,
clueless, incompetent, visionless and thieving government. Absurdity
has no other meaning,” APC said.