The unending fuel scarcity currently plaguing Nigeria has prompted the Nigerian Institute of Management, NIM, to express their griefs as citizens now spend more man hours fuel queues than on lucrative ventures.
During the NIM National Defence College Executive Member Conversion Programme Induction Ceremony in Abuja, on Friday, April 8, 2016 the the institute through its President and Chairman of Council, Mr. Munzali Jibril, explained that the crisis is having a negative impact on the economy.
They implored the Federal Government to address the issue as a matter of urgency to avoid further decline to the already damaged economy.
Jibril said: “Hopefully, this is a temporary thing; it is not a problem that is beyond solution. All you need is good planning, discipline and so on.
“I believe the Minister has very good intentions and he is a competent professional, but he is facing challenges that he has never faced before. Working as General Counsel in Mobil, he never faced these challenges. But I am sure that after this baptism of fire he would improve.”
He called on the Federal Government and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC, to draw up an importation plan that would guard against disruptions in the fuel supply chain.
The president further charged the Federal Government to ensure that the country has 10-day supply of the product in its depots and also fix the refineries.
“Ultimately, the long term solution is what the government is trying to do; to domesticate the refining of petroleum within the country, because it is very stupid of us to be a leading oil producer and yet have so little refining capacity to the extent that we rely on supplies from abroad for our own domestic consumption. It is very stupid indeed,” he said.
He added: “I think ultimately, we should make all the refineries work at maximum capacity and ultimately stop importing from abroad. People argue that for that to happen, you have to deregulate the downstream market so that people that would come and establish the refineries would do so at a profit.
“The government can do it even if it is subsidizing. But if private investors are coming, they have to be assured that they would be a market and they would not be forced to subsidise.”
