The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, has accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, of withholding petrol its members paid for more than six months ago.
IPMAN Chairman, Yahaya Alhassan claimed that the NNPCL used its member’s money to import fuel but had yet to deliver to them after entreaties, alleged that some of its members have as many as 4,000 outstanding tickets worth 7,740,000 Naira each with the NNPCL.
Alhassan in a statement after a caucus meeting of chairmen of depots in Suleja/Abuja, Gusau, Minna and Kaduna, disclosed that the NNPCL supplied some major marketers the product with some concession for their old tickets and insisted that IPMAN members should enjoy the same concession instead of incurring losses.
IPMAN which welcomed the removal of fuel subsidy, warned that service delivery would never stabilize be if the outstanding product tickets were not settled by the NNPCL.
Credible News reports that NNPCL had last month handed off the monopoly of petrol import and immediately unveiled a new template that raised pump price from 184 Naira to between 448 and 577 Naira per liter in its outlets.
The statement by the association partly reads: “There are more than 4,000 outstanding tickets with the NNPCL and each ticket is worth 7,740,000 Naira. Our fear is that most of our members borrowed from banks to buy the products and the loans are accumulating huge interest. Some of our members are already being harassed by bank officials.
“We, therefore, call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to quickly intervene as any scarcity of the product in the market will push the country into a serious fuel crisis that will never be contained within a short period”.
IPMAN which controls over 70 percent per cent of the retail outlet of the markets in the country, advised that the bridging scheme be retained since it “is self-funded by marketers”.
It argued that since the Nigerian economy is road-driven, tampering with the bridging scheme would further polarize the country and cause more hardship for the citizens.
The association solicited government’s intervention to ensure the payment of all outstanding bridging claims with the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority without delay.
Efforts by The Nation to speak with the NNPCL Chief Communications Officer, Malam Garba Muhammad on the allegation by IPMAN failed as he neither picked up his calls nor replied to text messages sent to his telephone line.
