FUEL SCARCITY: War of words continues as marketers refute NNPC’s N26.7bn debt claim

The Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA) Thursday refuted the claim by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that its members owed the oil firm N26.7bn.

According to DAPPMA, its members had in the past one month paid over N90bn for supply of petroleum products but had yet to receive any cargo from the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of NNPC.

On Wednesday, the NNPC had attacked DAPPMA over its statement that its members had no petrol in storage despite NNPC’s claims of supplying millions of litres of products.

NNPC had also stated that DAPPMA members owed it the sum of N26.7bn for products received from the corporation.

But in its reply to the NNPC, DAPPMA through its Executive Secretary for DAPPMA, Olufemi Adewole, said it was unfortunate for the national oil firm to wrongly accuse marketers.

Read also: FUEL SCARCITY: NNPC hits back at marketers, says they got ‘appreciable volume’

In a statement issued by Adewola on Thursday, the association 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 added that marketers had continued to sacrifice to supply the country 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 that in spite of NNPC’s wrong claims, 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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