- Oil marketers clash with the NNPC over the current fuel crisis in the country
- NNPC accused the marketers of hoarding fuel and refusing to pay the debt they owed the corporation
-However, confusion sets in as oil marketers under DAPPMA claimed they didn’t owe NNPC while their counterpart, MOMAN, admitted owing the corporation
Oil marketers under the aegis of Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA) and Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) have clashed with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over the current fuel scarcity crisis in the country.
On Wednesday, December 27, the NNPC attacked the oil marketers over the statement by the association that its members had no petrol in their tanks despite the corporation’s claims of importing millions of litres of petrol.
Punch reports that the national oil firm also stated that DAPPMA members owed it the sum of N26.7bn for products received from it.
NNPC added that the statement credited to the association on the fuel supply situation, especially petrol, was not true.
Meanwhile, DAPPMA on Thursday, December 28, accused the NNPC of lying for claiming that its members owed the national oil firm N26.7bn.
The oil marketers' association said its members have in the past one month paid over N90bn for petrol supply but have yet to receive any cargo from the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a division of the NNPC.
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The executive secretary of DAPPMA, Olufemi Adewole, said it was unfortunate for the national oil firm to attack and accuse marketers falsely.
In a statement signed by Adewole,the association said: “It is an undisputable fact that DAPPMA members have paid for petrol supply (with bank funds) for over one month, the value of which is in excess of N90bn, yet the PPMC/NNPC had no cargo to allocate to them. As such how can we be held responsible for hoarding?
“The PPMC/NNPC does not transact business with DAPPMA members on credit; hence, we are not aware of any indebtedness to the PPMC/NNPC by our members. We again reject any attempt to blame marketers for the shortfall in supply as it is not our making since the NNPC has been the sole importer since October 2017.”
Contrary to the claim by NNPC, Adewole said marketers had continued to work hard to ensure continued supply of petrol despite over N600bn debt owed DAPPMA members and over N800bn owed the different marketers’ groups as a whole by the federal government.
He stated: “The essence of our initial press release was to shed light on salient issues surrounding the shortfall in current petrol supply, which is presently solely handled by the NNPC. It was not an attempt to join issues with the PPMC/NNPC with whom we are partners.
“The NNPC’s view of our press release stating our side of the story and seeking to defend marketers for the very first time against the unwarranted accusations of hoarding and profiteering is rather unfortunate.”
The marketers stated that the petrol scarcity being experienced across the country would have been averted if the NNPC had listened to their warnings in October that there was a drop in supply of petrol.
The association, however, promised Nigerians that all possible steps were being taken to cooperate with the PPMC/NNPC to eliminate fuel queues nationwide in the next few days.
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In another twist, oil marketers under the aegis of Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) did not refute the NNPC claim that they were owing the corporation.
Speaking on a television programme in Abuja on Thursday, December 28, the executive secretary, MOMAN, Obafemi Olawore, asked the government to deduct the marketers’ debt from the $2bn it owed the oil dealers.
He said, “I know they (NNPC) were referring to DAPPMA, but talking about who is owing who, this is all about trade; we are always buying from the NNPC to sell. So sometimes, we owe and other times we are in credit, but the truth is that the government is owing us.
“And we have agreed with the government since June that when you (government) are going to pay us, deduct whatever we are owing you. Collectively, marketers in the industry are owed close to $2bn, so you can’t compare it to N27bn. It is not only the NNPC that we are owing.”
Olawore added, “We owe other government agencies, but we are saying that let’s start from the biggest and that is the fuel subsidy, the interest and the foreign exchange. We’ve done several reconciliations supervised by the Chief of Staff (to the President) and the Federal Ministry of Finance.
“So nobody is saying we are not owing, rather the government is owing us more and they should pay us and deduct whatever we are owing them.”
Olawore, however, also refuted the claim by NNPC group managing director, Maikanti Baru, that the marketers were hoarding and diverting petrol.
He said: “I wish we could meet face-to-face and I will tell him (Baru) when the problem started and when we started warning.
“I’d stated in the past that if you leave the NNPC as the sole importer of products, you will get to a point where the slightest shock will create a problem. The truth must be told, they (NNPC) are just getting the supply in some appreciable quantities. The supply dropped in October up until some two, three weeks ago; that’s the truth!”
He further stated: “Supply into the system dropped and somebody must own up to this. I’m not here to pass any blame; we are here to see how we can solve the problem and after that, we can sit at the table to look at what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. But we all saw it coming.
“We saw it coming and we said it that your suppliers are defaulting; they are not supplying enough.”
NAIJ.com previously reported that a former governor of the old Kaduna state, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, blamed the current petrol crisis on activities of saboteurs in the oil industry.
In a telephone interview with NAN on Thursday, December 28, Musa stated that Nigerians were going through this hardship due to selfish interest of some people.
He alleged that some petroleum marketers, in connivance with some government officials, hoarded petroleum products to create artificial scarcity for profiteering.
Fuel scarcity: This is getting too much for us - Nigerians lament - on NAIJ.com TV:
Source: Naija.ng