The National Union of Petroleum and
Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) said on Monday that the prevailing fuel
scarcity may worsen if depot owners continue to shut their reservoirs to
tanker drivers willing to lift products for distribution across the
country.
But depot owners have risen in defence
of themselves, saying they have no products and therefore “cannot give
what we don’t have”.
Tokunbo Korodo, the South-West chairman
of NUPENG, said on Monday that as late as 1:30p.m no tanker driver had
loaded petroleum product in Lagos from any depot for distribution to the
end users. “What I was told was that the independent depot owners may
have shut their depots to tanker drivers because of the over N200
billion owed them by the Federal Government.
“The other information I got was that
the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketing Association (DAPPMA) is
meeting with the president-elect on the subsidy issue. I think the
outcome of that meeting may determine if DAPPMA will reopen the depots
for loading or import more into the country.
“But as at 1.30p.m on Monday none of the
union members has loaded fuel from DAPPMA depots in Apapa,” Korodo
said, adding that the relocation of tankers from highways and the
inability to load fuel at the depots were responsible for the free-flow
of traffic in Apapa axis.
Korodo said that DAPPMA and major marketers were aggrieved over the yet to be settled subsidy claims.
However, in a telephone chat with
BusinessDay, Adewole Olufemi, the secretary general of DAPPMA, said the
depots were without products and cannot give what was not available.
“We do not have products because we have
not been paid. A few of our members who had have distributed. As I
speak to you, most of our members don’t have products in their depots,”
said Olufemi.
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