By Chijindu Emeruwa The Eastern Zonal Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Prince Bobby E...
By Chijindu Emeruwa
The Eastern Zonal Chairman of the Independent Petroleum
Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Prince Bobby Eberechi Dick, has
lamented the agony petroleum Marketers face in the Port Harcourt zone.
The zone comprises Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Benue,
Cross River, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Rivers Kogi and Nasarawa states, which their
NNPC loading are Aba, Calabar, Enugu, Markurdi and Ports Harcourt depots.
The Eastern chairman also regretted that non of the loading
depots are working at the moment, as the NNPC is the sole importer of petroleum
products to Nigeria.
Prince Dick disclosed the plight of the petroleum marketers
in a press statement issued to newsmen in Umuahia on Tuesday.
He said the depots have over 3000 marketers registered in
each depot with NNPC, regretting also that instead of their products being
pumped to these depots, they now sell products to middlemen in the name of
private tank farm owners, who now decides how much they will sell to
independent marketers without taking cognizance of the government-regulated
price.
According to Dick, “the department of petroleum resources
now Nigeria Midstream and Downstream sector, watch vulnerably what these
shylock private tank farm owners are doing. But instead, it is the ordinary
independent Petroleum marketer that will be forced to sell at a regulated
price. Because we don’t have Godfathers or Godmothers we are left to the whims
and caprices of the NNPC.
Dick frowned at the deplorable condition of roads in the
eastern zone and lamented that all major roads in the zone are impassable and
have caused huge economic loss to petroleum marketers.
“Calabar to Akwa Ibom, Port Harcourt to Aba, Port Harcourt
to Imo state. More worrisome is the fact that the very roads leading to NNPC
depots, especially in the eastern zone, appear to be the worst hit. Every day
our trucks fall on these roads, and we keep losing our borrowed funds from
banks who as a result, dispose of our properties(being the collateral to secure
such loans), leaving our families homeless and traumatized”, the chairman
added.
Continuing, the IPMAN chairman regretted that the rise in
the price of diesel is gradually running independent marketers out of business,
as transporting petroleum products from the private depots to the stations had
become very herculean.
“Also to power outstations have become strangulating. For
instance, we use a minimum of 50 litres of diesel per day at a cost of about
N40,000.00, yet we are forced to sell at a regulated price”, Dick stressed.
He further revealed that the security agencies have
abandoned their official duties and focused attention on the independent
petroleum marketers, frowning also the multiple and duplicated taxation coupled
with draconian revenue regimes of different states and local governments that
continue to compound the woes and agony of the marketers.
The IPMAN Eastern Chairman appealed to the federal
government to resuscitate all the NNPC depots in the Port Harcourt zone (System
2E) and asked the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to regulate the price
at the private tank farms, to enable the petroleum marketers to sell at the
regulated price.
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