According to Premium Times,
she said at a press conference in Abuja yesterday that Nigerians should
stop complaining about petrol scarcity and suffer the pains of it
because the scarcity was caused by their demand for transparency in the
petroleum sector.
She
added that Nigerians demand for transparency and accountability coupled
with the government’s determination to ensure same was the cause of the
sufferings.
“We
cannot eat our cakes and have it. We cannot keep calling out for
transparency and accountability and pointing at corruption if we are not
prepared to bear some of the hardship that will obviously come when you
are trying to clean up a sector,” the Minister was quoted as saying.
Madueke,
however, not done with blaming Nigerians for the petrol scarcity, also
claimed that the government has already reduced the scarcity being
witnessed.
“The
verifications were being done; payments could not be made by Finance
and I think they have said that severally, but the verifications have
been done; payments are now being made and like I said the queues have
actually begun to go down.”
Premium Times
further noted that in Abuja where she claimed the scarcity has reduced
and where she is based as Minister, motorists still spend several hours
on petrol queues which sometimes are over 200m long; with many petrol
stations not even selling the product. Black market operators can be
seen selling the product at over 100 per cent the approved price with
their transparent jerry-cans everywhere in the Nigerian capital.
The
Minister however gave Nigerians some hope as she said the scarcity
should disappear before the festive period. She said already the
ministry had released petroleum products from its strategic reserve to
reduce shortages.
The
Minister’s statement has not gone down well with Nigerians. Many say
that she shouldn’t be putting the blame on the people for the failure of
the Petroleum Ministry. Transparency and accountabilty are qualities
every Ministry should have had long before now and so Nigerians don’t
have to bear the burden of the Ministry’s efforts in achieving this.
Thoughts?
No comments:
Post a Comment