FG, oil marketers meet this week to resolve subsidy impasse, says Marafa

Indications emerged weekend that federal government and oil marketers are set to resolve longstanding subsidy impasse

This is as federal government will this week meet with the marketers to offset outstanding claims following threats to shut down the fuel supply unless their claims are paid.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum Downstream sector, Kabir Marafa disclosed this on Sunday after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Marafa stated that the President has agreed to parley with the marketers to avoid shutting the sector

“Finally, today, I had quality time with Mr. President and we have looked into the whole thing. By this week, we will invite all the stakeholders. I believe we should be able to get to the root of the matter.

” As far the depots owners we are going to plead with them again to give more time, especially now that we have discussed with the head of the executive arm of government. So, I’m sure everything will be resolved in the next few days”

“But there are some technicalities now regarding payment of subsidies, forex differentials and interest, which this government inherited.”

He however, blamed the delays in clearing the subsidy arrears on bureaucratic bottlenecks

“They are not a creation of this government, however, government is a continuum and when the President came in he was confronted with it, he agreed and said fine I have stopped subsidy but since there are claims, we will look into it and pay.

“But now the bureaucratic nature of the computations is what dragged up to this time and depots owners are not too happy with what the ministry of finance has done and may be some other agencies.

Marafa noted that the National Assembly was wading into the matter, adding that ” if it is not carefully handled, some enemies of the administration might bring about technical issues that could lead to queues on the line, despite the fact that government has provided enormous quantities of petroleum products across the country that can last the country up to six months through NNPC”

“So, some people are not too happy about it and they want to sabotage the efforts of the government.”

Also speaking on the political situation in Zamfara, his home state, Marafa said hiseeting with the President provided an opportunity to also tap from his experience of governance and conflicts resolutions and so on.

“We have had very good time and I got enormous advice on the way forward”

” We are still on. We are in court and hopefully we believe in the next couple of weeks, maybe two weeks from now, the courts will provide a way forward. We all know what happened and it be prejudicial now to start discussing the issues on pages of newspaper or television. We are on our way to an amicable resolution of the problems” he said.

Tony Ailemen, Abuja