Trouble As Petroleum Marketers Accuses NNPCL Of Withholding Petrol

IPMAN accuses NNPCL of withholding petrol that its members paid for more than 6 months ago.
NNPCL has not yet responded to the allegations.
IPMAN is calling on the government to intervene to avert a petrol scarcity.

EKO HOT BLOG reports that the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) of withholding petrol that its members paid for more than six months ago.

IPMAN is calling on President Bola Tinubu to intervene to avert another petrol scarcity in the country.

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IPMAN alleges that some of its members have 4,000 outstanding tickets worth N7,740,000 each with the NNPCL. The association claims that the NNPCL used its members’ money to import fuel but has yet to deliver to them after repeated requests.

IPMAN chairman Yahaya Alhassan said that the NNPCL has supplied some major marketers with petrol, but has not given IPMAN members the same concessions. He said that IPMAN members are incurring losses because they have to borrow money to buy petrol from the open market.

IPMAN welcomed the removal of fuel subsidy, but warned that service delivery would never stabilize if the outstanding product tickets were not settled by the NNPCL.

The NNPCL had last month handed off the monopoly of petrol import and immediately unveiled a new template that raised pump price from N184 to between N448 and N577 per litre in its outlets.

IPMAN controls over 70 percent of the retail outlets in the country. The association advised that the bridging scheme be retained, since it is self-funded by marketers. It argued that tampering with the bridging scheme would further polarize the country and cause more hardship for the citizens.