The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has expressed its commitment to support Federal Government’s efforts in eliminating corruption in the downstream sector.
The Chairman, Board of Trustees of IPMAN, Aminu Abdulkadir, stated this on Sunday in Yola during an interactive session on “Challenges of Fuel Supply and Distribution ” .’
The seminar was organised by Adamawa/Taraba Chapters of IPMAN, Transport Owners and Petroleum Tanker Drivers.
Abdulkadir said the association, which controlled about 85 per cent of petrol outlets across the country, had a vital role to play in checking the problem of products scarcity nationwide.
He absolved IPMAN of complicity in products scarcity, adding that corruption by some government officials and insufficient supply of the products by the government agencies were causing problems.
In his speech, the Adamawa/Taraba Branch Chairman of IPMAN, Abubakar Butu, said IPMAN should not always be blamed “whenever there is fuel scarcity or price increase”.
Butu called on government agencies to do their job without discrimination.
“For instance, government said we should buy from depots at the cost of N76.50 per litre and sell at N86.50 but the fact is that we do not get the product from the depots at N76.50.
“Government officials are aware of this but are not ready to clampdown on the depot owners”, Butu said.
He said that NNPC was not helping matters because the product was always not available at NNPC depots.
Butu said this had forced the marketers to rely solely on private depots who sell sometimes as high as N100 per litre.
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.