The Executive Secretary of Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA), Olufemi Adewole, on Thursday said the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) lied when it said members of the association owed the government-owned oil firm N26.7bn.
According to Adewole, members of DAPPMA had, in the past one month, paid over N90bn for petrol supply but had yet to receive any cargo from the Petroleum Products Marketing Company, a subsidiary of NNPC.
The NNPC had earlier attacked DAPPMA over a claim by the association that its members had no petrol in their various tanks despite NNPC’s claims of importing millions of litres of products.
NNPC also stated that DAPPMA members owe it the sum of N26.7bn for products received from the corporation, adding that the statement credited to the association on the fuel supply situation, especially Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) was “very unfortunate.”
But in his reply to NNPC’s claims, Adewole, via a statement issued to journalists, said it was unfortunate for the national oil firm to attack and accuse marketers falsely.
He said, “It is an undisputable fact that DAPPMA members have paid for petrol supply (with bank funds) for over one month, the value of which is in excess of N90bn, yet PPMC/NNPC had no cargo to allocate to them.
“As such, how can we be held responsible for hoarding?
“PPMC/NNPC does not transact business with DAPPMA members on credit, hence we are not aware of any indebtedness to PPMC/NNPC by our members.
“We again reject any attempt to blame marketers for the shortfall in supply, as it is not our making since NNPC has been the sole importer since October 2017.”
Adewole said marketers had continued to sacrifice to keep the country wet with fuel despite over N600bn debt owed DAPPMA members and over N800bn owed marketers as a whole by the Federal Government.
He said, “The essence of our initial press release was to shed light on salient issues surrounding the shortfall in current petrol supply which is presently solely handled by the NNPC. It was not an attempt to join issues with PPMC/NNPC with whom we are partners.
“NNPC’s view of our press release stating our side of the story and seeking to defend marketers for the very first time against the unwarranted accusations of hoarding and profiteering is rather unfortunate.”
The association, however, assured Nigerians, irrespective of NNPC’s stance, that all possible steps were being taken to cooperate with PPMC/NNPC to eliminate the fuel queues nationwide within the next few days.
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