Buhari moves against the Oil Cartel, set to bar importation of fuel by oil marketters, appoint himself Minister of Petroleum.

 

President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government has a few axes to grind  with some sectors in Nigeria, and with the way the government is going it is very clear they are hell bent on destroying the “oil cartel” that allegedly  exists in the Oil sector.

Act 1 the government is set to ensure that only the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) imports petroleum products.The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele made this disclosure in an interview with Financial Times of London recently.

He said: “The president came on board and said that we will work very hard to reduce importation of petroleum products by ensuring that our refineries work. Our refineries are working now. Warri and Port Harcourt have started producing, they have not obtained the optimal capacity but they will. Kaduna refinery will start working this month.

“Now, there are other actions that the presidency is putting in place to ensure that we reduce importation of petroleum products where the NNPC will solely, almost solely be responsible for procuring refined petroleum so those who are importing petroleum products will only just need to go to the NNPC and pick up petroleum products.

“So in that area I would say that we are already moving in the direction of reducing the import of petroleum products. And we will achieve it.”

Speaking on Buhari’s order that revenue-generating agencies operate a Treasury Single Account, the CBN boss explained that, “once they receive the revenues, the revenues must come to the centre, and that means those revenues will come to the Central Bank of Nigeria.”

“We had instances where some of those revenues were trapped outside the central bank. The president came on and he insisted that all revenues come to the centre and that’s what we are saying, and it’s the reason why you are seeing some improvements in the reserves position,” he noted.

ACT 2: The President Buhari is set to head the Ministry of Petroleum for 18 months before appointing a substantive minister for the ministry.

The President allegedly said this while meeting with some members of his political party, the All Progressives Congress, in Abuja recently,a source who was at the meeting informed reporters on the condition of anonymity, that the President said he would use the one and a half years of heading the sensitive ministry to reposition it

The source said, “At the meeting we had recently, we discussed the issues of portfolios and other matters,” the President said he was going to handle the Ministry of Petroleum himself for about 18 months.

He said it was after this that he would appoint a substantive minister for the ministry. He said he would only personally handle the reorganization of the much-important ministry.

“Besides, he said the ministry needed to be reformed and be rid of corruption. He promised to sanitize the ministry.”

Buhari was once a minister in charge of the ministry and because of his experience, he was said to have vowed to make sure that he blocked all the loopholes that enabled those manning the ministry to either steal money or petroleum products.

Act 3>>>>Removal of Subsidy??? Only time will tell but so far this President means business, hospitals will have big businesses this year, comment if you guess what I mean by that last statement.

Source:The Punch Online.