The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) has been instructed by the Federal Government to revoke the licenses of oil marketers who are responsible for creating artificial scarcity and driving up the price of gasoline, according to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN).
PENGASSAN demanded that the NMDPRA mobilize all of its workers across the nation to oversee compliance and warned that anyone found in violation would have their license withdrawn as a deterrence.
Yesterday, PENGASSAN issued a statement warning that, should the cooperation go unchecked, the union will not be reluctant to work with other stakeholders to make sure that Nigerians are not further victimized.
Festus Osifo and Lumumba Okugbawa, the president and secretary general of PENGASSAN, expressed their sympathy for Nigerians’ suffering due to the scarcity and sharp increase in the price of gasoline in a statement. They urged the NMDPRA to order all marketers and retailers to make the goods available at the set price.
According to the union, it has been urging its members at NNPC Trading Limited, which is in charge of assigning the products to marketers, and from NMDPRA in various depots and terminals across the nation, which is in charge of issuing cargo clearance, monitoring compliance, routing inspection, metering calibration/maintenance, accurate delivery to trucks, and record keeping, to carry out their duties quickly.
According to PENGASSAN “even though we have some good marketers who tend to play by the rules, others who are overbearing have deployed methods of creating artificial scarcities in order to hike the price of the product uncontrollably as the prices of the product now sells between N185 and N650 depending on your location and outlet.”
“From data available to us from our members, there is over 30 days PMS sufficiency in the country; hence there is no basis for the current scarcity and hardship that Nigerians are being subjected to.”
