IPMAN blames private depot owners for high cost of petrol

The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has heaped the blame on private depot owners for members’ inability to sell petrol to motorists at the official pump price of N86.5 per litre.

Dependable sources in the association said on Friday in Lagos that petrol was sold to them above the new pump price.

They claimed that depot owners at Apapa sold petrol to them at N92 per litre against the official depot price of N77 per litre approved by the government.

The sources appealed to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to intervene through effective monitoring and clamp down on private depot owners in Apapa.

“We will sell at a loss if we comply with the government directive to sell to motorists at N86.50 per litre,’’ a source said.

Another marketer said: “We cannot sell petrol at N 86.50k as directed because most private depots in Apapa do not sell petrol to us at the official depot price of N77.

“Any marketer who wants to buy petrol pays his money into a dedicated depot owner’s account at the rate of N89 per litre to N92 litre before taking the receipt back to the depot to be loaded.

“No depot owner in Apapa can issue a receipt reflecting the amount in litre of petrol but they will only issue a waybill to enable truck drivers discharge the product at designated place.’’

The marketers urged DPR to intensify efforts at monitoring depots to ensure total compliance with the official depot price.

They alleged that ongoing profiteering at the depot caused the slow compliance to pump price reversal by marketers.

Alhaji Aminu Garba, an independent marketer, said that despite collecting tickets from NNPC to load at N77 at the depots, owners of depots in Apapa still sold to them at between N92 and N101 per litre.

“This has made it difficult for us to comply with the official price. The Federal Government should to wade into the situation and wield the big stick on dishonest depot owners.’’

He alleged that some of the private depots who displayed N77 on their billboards as depot price had created other accounts into which customers paid in additional money, thus increasing the ex-depot price through the back door.

Efforts to get depot owners to comment on the issue were unsuccessful as officials at Folawiyo, Ramaniya, Capital and De-Jones depots said they were not authorised to speak with the press.

The DPR had in December 2015 revoked fuel imports permits of some companies in Lagos over alleged profiteering.

The revocation of licenses which would last for three month, also attracted a cumulative fine of N10 million.

Correspondents, who monitored the fuel situation within the Lagos metropolis on Friday, report that some filling stations in Ikorodu, Ikotun, Bariga and Lagos-Ibadan Expressway were still selling petrol above the official pump price.