The Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) on Tuesday claimed that the ongoing fuel scarcity being experienced in parts of the country was caused by the two rounds of naira devaluation carried out by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
PPPRA said the devaluation was carried out by the CBN between November 2014 and February 2015.
The Executive Secretary of PPPRA, Farouk Ahmed, stated this while defending his agency’s 2015 budget before the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream).
Ahmed told the committee that the devaluation caused huge confusion in the oil sector as his agency did not know the exchange rate to be used for payment on fuel importation.
He noted that as a result, marketers could not deliver the cargoes of fuel expected from them because they were not sure of the exact delivery cost due to the devaluation.
He added that as a result of the CBN measure, the old template used for paying the marketers was no longer useful.
Ahmed explained that PPPRA had to seek the advice of the CBN before it could eventually draw up a new template.
The crisis, he said, had eventually been resolved as the Budget Office on Monday approved payment for outstanding bills owed the marketers.
He noted that situation was resolved after a meeting of the Ministry of Finance, PPPRA and other relevant agencies.
Filed under: News Tagged: Naira devaluation
