Even though the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has withdrawn the discovered 100 million litres of adulterated petrol from the market, the ongoing fuel scarcity would continue as transporters of the commodity begin to strike.
Yusuf Othman, the National President, Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), revealed that Nigerians are not only experiencing fuel scarcity due to the discovery of methanol in 100 million litres of petrol.
According to him, the federal government’s refusal to increase the freight rate for transporting petrol, has also contributed to it.
Noting that the payment of freight for petrol was regulated by the Nigeria Downstream Midstream Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), the NARTO chief maintained that should the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government continue to refuse to increase the freight rate, more petrol transporters would be left with no other option that to put their operations on hold.
His words: “Worse still, these payments are received by transporters in arrears, usually three to five months after the products are delivered.
“In 2020, there was an approval by the defunct board of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency to increase the freight rate by 26 per cent for which the endorsement of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources was needed for implementation.
“However, the Minister of State could not endorse the approval due to the obvious implication of its implementation that would result into either an outright increase in the pump price of PMS or an increase in the subsidy on the product, neither of which the government was ready to do at the time.”
“This situation generated a lot of tension in the downstream petroleum industry with a strong possibility of industrial action from both NARTO and PTD/NUPENG. To douse this tension, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC intervened.”
