Dimeji Akinloye | 21:56 | 20.05.2016

The marketers said except the CBN provides foreign exchange to import fuel, the recent subsidy payment they received from the government will remain in their naira accounts.

Oil marketers on Friday, May 20, lamented that they are unable to import fuel due to the unavailability of foreign exchange.
The marketers, under the umbrella of the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DPPMAN), are appealing to the Federal Government to assist them in making foreign exchange available.

They made the plea during a meeting at the headquarters of the Ministry of Finance.

The meeting was chaired by the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, and attended by Chief Executive Officers of 46 major oil companies in the country.

The agenda was to discuss salient issues affecting the downstream sector of the petroleum industry.

Chairman of DAPPMAN, Dapo Abiodun, told the minister that members of the association finding it difficult to convert some of the naira payments made by the government to dollars.

He said their inability to convert these payments from the Federal Government from naira to dollar is making it almost impossible for them to meet their obligations to their foreign partners.

He said while the oil marketers will continue to do their best in importing petroleum products into the country, the unavailability of foreign exchange might make it challenging to achieve such objective.

The Federal Government this week announced that it has paid the oil marketers N48.2 billion minus value added tax as the arrears of outstanding 2015 subsidy claims.

According to Adeosun, the payment is to enable the marketers import petroleum products and meet up their other financial needs.

Abiodun however said except the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) provides foreign exchange to them, the payment will remain in their naira accounts.

He said: “We want to thank you for the recent payment of about N42 billion but we want to emphasise the fact that this naira payment will continue to sit in our banks.

“We look forward to dialoguing with you as to how you can help us expedite the sourcing of foreign exchange to liquidate our exposures to our foreign bankers that we have line of credit with.

“We are very worried about going into a new dynamics in which marketers are now going to be sourcing forex at the rate that they can find, which we have approximated to around N285 to a dollar.

“We believe that it is a quick fix solution to all the epileptic supply of petroleum products in the county.

“However, we still have this naira sitting in our account from previous transactions and we are worried that if anything happens to the rate of exchange officially, we are going to be caught in between.

“We do not want to come back to you to ask for foreign exchange differentials which issue we still have pending from previous transactions.”

Adeosun said the recent subsidy payment released to the oil marketers is one of the liabilities inherited from the Goodluck Jonathan administration.

While expressing optimism that the reforms currently being implemented in the oil sector would restore confidence in the market, she said assured that government will continue to ensure the availability of petroleum products in the county.

Source: http://pulse.ng/local/fuel-scarcity-we-wont-import-fuel-unless-cbn-provides-forex-oil-marketers-tell-fg-id5059478.html

God we commit this country into your able hands.

Imagine. After frustrating the Government to change the price of a liter of fuel from N86.50 to N145 because they are expected to bring in the commodity based on N285/$, they now want to blackmail the Government to provide them USD at N197/$ so that they will still come and sell at N145/liter. Na wah o.
See armed robbery sense.

Nigeria is in a state of miffidy-piffidy and can only be cured when philosophers becomes kings...literacy is a virtue....a general can only lead an army n we Nigerians are without Ak 47....


Mo n wa iyawo ooo

This is pure stealing . If the Govt should give forex to marketers the price must return to normal.

It's the FG that's trying to play smart on this guys. You knw there is no forex for them and u said they can get it at any cost and sell how much they like, even NNPC that is yours can't even get to sell it's products at 100. The marketer are smarter than them.

no marketer pressured or frustrated the govt of the day to hurriedly fix forex for fuel import at 285 naira per dollar, they stewpeedly n illiterately made it so without asking themselves how n where the interbanks n bdcs will get dollars from to fund the marketers fuel importation scheme.

I said it nigerians shudnt be happy about the new price cos it isnt yet uhuru. a situationwhere interbanks, mallams, bdcs n all other money vendors rely on cbn for dollars, the govt n cbn still maintains that naira will never be devalued but the same govt is fixing price of dollars at 285 for importation of fuel.
its pathetic.

This is why we all must support the NLC strike.

shevon:
Imagine. After frustrating the Government to change the price of a liter of fuel from N86.50 to N145 because they are expected to bring in the commodity based on N285/$, they now want to blackmail the Government to provide them USD at N197/$ so that they will still come and sell at N145/liter. Na wah o.
See armed robbery sense.

One of the polices of Buhari administration was to stop financial institutions from issuing dollar to importers,do u expect the marketers to be sourcing for forex in the black market to import petroleum products?, if that should happen then expect a litre of fuel to be sold above 400 naira,,,most of Buhari polices has to be reversed.