As Nigerians battle the persistent fuel crisis, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company has shut its petrol application portal against marketers, suspending fresh orders due to a huge backlog that has not been cleared.
At the moment, marketers said they could not access the portal through which they apply to NNPC for the purchase of petrol.
Our correspondent gathered that the marketers usually bid for PMS through the NNPC portal.
According to them, payments will be made through the same channel while the marketer waits for months to get the product.
Independent marketers told The PUNCH that NNPC owes them billions of naira, saying they paid the money for fuel but were not supplied after three months.
Recently, officials of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, reported that NNPC had stopped loading the trucks of IPMAN members, especially after the recent hike in petrol prices.
IPMAN members operate over 70 per cent of filling stations nationwide.
They expressed concern that the state-owned energy company did not attend to them despite having paid for petrol about two months ago.
This, they said, made them resort to patronising private depots who sell to them at higher rates.
When contacted by our correspondent, NNPC confirmed the shutdown of its petrol purchasing portal and gave its reasons.
According to its spokesperson, Olufemi Soneye, the company shut the portal due to a significant backlog.
Soneye explained that the shutdown became necessary to stop the NNPC from holding marketers’ capital for too long.
“We have a significant backlog to address. The closure is intended to prevent us from holding marketers’ funds for an extended period,” Soneye explained.
He assured the marketers that the portal would be reopened after the backlog had been reduced.
“It will be reopened once the backlog has been sufficiently reduced. We are working to address it as soon as possible,” he told our correspondent.
Soneye did not disclose the amount of the backlog.
During an interview with The PUNCH in January, the National Vice President of IPMAN, Hammed Fashola, made a similar allegation which was denied by Soneye at the time.
Fashola had asked the Federal Government to review the current distribution pattern to give priority to IPMAN members.
Fashola said, “We buy products from NNPC cash and carry. We don’t enjoy any credit facility with the NNPC. There are times when we pay for products, and you don’t get the products for two or three months. You have your money in the coffers of the NNPC, which means they are trading with our money.
“If I am not exaggerating, we should be talking of over N300bn, when you consider the number of marketers all over Nigeria. Our money is always there, trapped, while we keep struggling to get fuel. The three days will turn into months if they don’t have products or they are out of stock, you have to wait, and your money will be there.”
The PUNCH observes that while the fuel queues are subsiding, the price of a litre of petrol remains unaffordable for many Nigerians.
In NNPC filling stations and stations owned by major marketers, a litre of petrol goes for prices ranging from N855 to N900. These stations are usually riddled with long queues.
However, independent marketers sell for as high as N1,000/litre or more, depending on the location.
So far, the cost of transportation has doubled across the nation.
