The Senate yesterday threatened to direct the sack of whoever is in charge of kerosene distribution in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, or the Petroleum Pricing and Marketing Company, PPMC, if the product does not consistently get to the end users.
Senate President David Mark issued the threat while commenting on a bill for an act to amend the Petroleum Act to ensure direct allocation of kerosene to peddlers from PPMC/ NNPC deport.
Mark said that instead of the bill, the Senate should insist that the officials of PPMC/NNPC who failed in their duty to ensure that the products got to the desired end users should be relieved off their jobs.
He said: “The solution to that is that the man who is in charge currently, who is to ensure that kerosene gets to the man on the street and who is not doing it, is to sack him and let him go. Get somebody else and get all those that are involved to get along with him too.
“We are all aware that kerosene does not get to where it should be. There are a lot of middle men who are just making millions out of it at the expense of the ordinary man. If you now ask the man in the village to come to Abuja and get his allocation he is only going to end up spending and using his own money to bribe more people than he is trying to do at the moment.
“So, that one will not solve the problem. This bill will not solve the problem. The intention and the reasoning behind the bill are very sound. It is good and in the interest of the common man but this is not a solution to the problem.”
