House Directs NNPC to Resuscitate Floating Stations in Niger Delta

James Emejo in Abuja

The House of Representatives wednesday passed a motion calling on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to resume supply of petroleum products to the floating stations and ensure that the products are sold at the official rates.

It further urged the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) to regulate the supply and distribution of products to the floating stations and also mandated the committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream and Upstream) to ensure implementation and report back in three weeks for further legislative action.

Also yesterday, the House passed a resolution urging the federal government to implement one element of the Social Intervention Programmes (SIP) at a time and ensure that each of the elements cover all the 36 states of the federation in the spirit of fairness, equity and justice.

It also mandated the Committees on Poverty Alleviation and Labour, Employment and Productivity to liaise with the agency in charge of the SIPs to ensure that the scheme is implemented in all federal constituencies in the country.

However, the motion, sponsored by Hon. Julius Pondi, calling for the resuscitation of NNPC floating stations in coastal communities of the Niger Delta, noted that the floating stations established by the corporation were the only source of petroleum products supplies to communities up till mid 2015.

But for reasons not explained to the affected communities, the products floating stations had since stopped functioning, therefore, making the operators of marine transport services to go in search of fuel in distant places in the hinterlands- a situation which resulted in hike in the cost of marine transportation with its attendant ripple effect on the prices of goods and services.

The House also recalled that even when the floating stations were in operation, there was never a time when petrol, diesel or kerosene did not sell at higher price per litre than official rates.
Meanwhile, the House, in the motion sponsored by Hon. Bode Ayorinde on the need to appraise the modalities of implementation of SIPs of the federal government, noted that the federal government claimed to have spent N41.71 billion across the federation implementating different aspects of the SIPs, and that not less than 25 million meals had been served under the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme.

However, they expressed worry that feeding programme had only covered seven states of the federation, adding that there were no credible statistics as to how far the other elements of the scheme had gone across the country.

Ayorinde said schools and people of Owo/Ose federal constituency of Ondo State have not benefitted from any of the four components of the SIPs.