Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has denied that the fuel scarcity witnessed in some parts of the country was caused by non-payment of oil marketers.

Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala said this while briefing newsmen on Tuesday in Abuja. “I want to emphasise that contrary to some unfounded speculations, the queues are not caused by payment issues.

“As you know, we paid the marketers a total of N320.8 billion from the Excess Crude Account in two instalment in December last year.This underscores the fact that we are taking payment of marketers very seriously indeed.

“We’ve been in constant touch and talking with the marketers and a week ago we reached an agreement with them on their core concerns which we have addressed,’’ she said.

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