Many filling stations in the commercial nerve centre of Abia State, Aba, have closed shops as a result of scarcity of petrol products.
The scarcity is a result of the high cost of sourcing petroleum products from third party marketers by the stations. The primary source for the product is the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation limited, NNPCL.
According to reports, some of the filling stations in the city retail petrol to the people at prices between N1300 and N1350. These stations it were revealed are the ones that lifted the products at costs more than NNPC control prices.
This was revealed in an interview, by the Executive Chairman, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Aba branch, Mazi Oliver Okolo. He noted that the NNPC had not supplied petroleum products to their members in Abia in the past three months.
“The NNPC had been selling the products to some suppliers, who indirectly sell the product to the IPMAN members at exorbitant prices.”
“Our members now lift petrol at high costs and sell to motorists and other users at high cost,” he said.
Okolo added that if the refineries were working, people would buy petrol at an affordable prices.
The IPMAN Chairman, therefore, called on the Federal Government to make the 21 NNPC refineries in the country functional. Noting that it to reduce the sufferings of the people.
Reacting to the situation, a member of the National Executive, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Chief Godfrey Chukwunyere, decried the situation.
He said NNPC sell petrol to mega stations, major marketers and the independent petroleum marketers at different high rates. This, he said, is in addition to the inexperienced personnel handling the affairs of the corporation.
Chukwunyere, therefore, called for the total over haul of the petroleum sector. He also appealed to the Federal Government to prevail on the NNPC to sell the petroleum products at uniform prices.
He stated that this will make things easier for the people.
source: PUNCH
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