Minister of State for petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu,stated yesterday that the challenges facing the country in regards to fuel supply can be resolved if the down stream sector of the Nigerian petroleum industry is liberalized and subsidy of petroleum products removed.
He stated this with regards to the statement of President Muhammadu Buhari who said that the oil and gas sector of the country was strategic to the growth and development of the country, and would continue to be significant for a long time to come.
However at the presentation of the key achievements of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources in three years (2016 to 2018) and award to staff of the ministry, Kachikwu, argued that to tackle the issue of fuel supply, the country has to find a means to gratify the need to provide products sufficiently for the populace and at the same time to be able to free the sector for growth.
“In the midstream and downstream sectors, we have struggled.I would love to see a day when there would be no fuel scarcity in this country.But for that to happen, there are certain realities. The liberalization of the sector is going to be a panacea to being able to solve this,” he said.
He added that “As long as we continue to subsidize products, create market-unfriendly type practices, we would continue to struggle.
“We are not going to trade our way out of the fuel crisis by bringing sufficiency, by expanding reserves, by extravagant costs which cost the country a lot of money; that is not the solution. The solution is to get our refineries working.”