Federal Government has promised to pay petroleum marketers the sum of N156 billion to alleviate fuel scarcity spreading across the nation.

Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who spoke with reporters yesterday in Abuja, said that all outstanding payments to the marketers would be resolved as well.

“On the issue of oil marketers, we have really been working with them and we have been dialoguing with them all along. We’ve paid N350 billion in December, we paid them N31 billion in foreign exchange differentials and by tomorrow (Thursday) we will be paying them N100 billion for which we had earlier given them IOUs for as well as their interest rate differentials of N56 billion.

“So, I am about to go and sign, to get that paid and I think that Nigerians can see that the government is making maximum effort to accommodate the oil marketers. They are also Nigerians, and they need to also cooperate with us,” she said.

Okonjo-Iweala appealed to them to bear with the Federal Government as it tries to prioritise its policies in the face of dwindling revenues.

She further noted that the government had in December 2014 paid the sum of N350 billion to oil marketers, noting that an additional N31 billion in foreign exchange differentials had already been released.

•Photo shows Okonjo-Iweala.