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The Federal Government on Thursday moved to avert a nationwide fuel scarcity as it directed the Debt Management Office to pay marketers all subsidy claims that had been verified.
The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said the claims would be paid as soon as the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency provided the supporting Sovereign Debt Notes.
She, however, did not disclose the total amount to be paid to the marketers.
The oil marketers, operating under the aegis of Depot and Petroleum Product Marketers Association, had threatened to go on strike if their claims were not paid by Thursday.
Specifically, they vowed to suspend fuel loading at the depots in Lagos and other parts of the country.
But the minister, in a statement by her Senior Special Assistant on Communication, Mr. Paul Nwabuiku, on Thursday, said there was no need for the marketers to go on strike since the government was already addressing the subsidy payment issue.
The statement reads, “The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has directed the Debt Management Office to pay marketers with verified claims as soon as supporting Sovereign Debt Notes are provided by the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency.
“The directive is to reinforce the Federal Government’s determination to ensure that there is no disruption in fuel supplies across the country.”
The statement recalled that payments based on verified claims resumed after a meeting of the Federation Accounts Allocations Committee in June this year, and payments totalling N17bn were made.
It also said, “To prevent overpayments, verification of claims is a cornerstone of the procedures adopted by the Federal Ministry of Finance for managing fuel subsidy payments.
“The minister clarified that following the report of the Presidential Committee headed by Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, it is clear that some marketers also owe government significant sums of money and that government expects that these will be paid.”
The minister also said that the review had produced a lot of useful details on what went wrong with the system and what needed to be done to ensure improvement.
The review process started in February when the Ministry of Finance and other relevant government agencies held a meeting with bankers and marketers at the instance of President Goodluck Jonathan.
This was followed by a session with the accounting and auditing firms to re-evaluate their work.
It said, based on the review, the services of the two audit and accounting firms responsible for certifying the documents and claims of the marketers before payment were terminated.
Subsequently, a committee was set up to verify oil subsidy claims, it added.
The Presidential Committee on Verification and Reconciliation of Fuel Subsidy Payment, in its report, which was submitted on Monday, revealed that 21 companies that participated in subsidy payments were found culpable of fraudulent claims.
The report said that N21bn was cleared leaving N382bn as the sum in contention, the basis for which the committee recommended the process of recovery.
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