There has been an increase in the number applicant drivers and beggars coming on daily basis to beg for alms from operators at petroleum tank farms located along Mile 2-Apapa expressway of Lagos.
A petroleum marketer and Secretary of Ibeto Unit of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG); Comrade Chris Iyasere confirmed to Shipping Position Daily last week that due to the biting economy, there has been a steady rise in the number of people thronging the depots to beg for money.
He equally confirmed that many of them usually come as applicant drivers seeking employment as truck drivers.
Comrade Iyasere however lamented that presently, there has been a drop in the level of activities at the tank farms. He said that the number of petroleum trucks loaded from the tank farms has dropped drastically from 130 trucks to 30 trucks.
He said that marketers, who were buying ten trucks, now buy one truck.
Apart from the economic recession, he lamented that inconsistency in the exchange rate has also caused fluctuation in the price of AGO thereby confusing the marketers.
"The number of trucks we load per day has depreciated so drastically, on a good day when we had rush here, we used to load about 130 trucks but now, we don't load more than 20 trucks or even 15 trucks"
"Another thing that is not helping matters is the price of the product, it is really affecting sales, every marketer wants to go to where they would get product cheaper even if it is 50 kobo difference"
"At a point, the product was not available because people were not getting foreign exchange to import", he added.
Comrade Iyasere confirmed that "because of the recession and the hunger and poverty in town, you will see able body men crowding the depot, and sometimes you would be tempted to part with the little you have kept for yourself and your family"
"The applicant-drivers and others that are selling outside the depot are dependent on the market, and when the market is not there the union members are meant to part with something"
"The begging is no longer limited to the physically challenged, even able bodied men are now into it", he said.
Also speaking with our correspondent, a petroleum product supplier, Chief Kingsley Onuoma lamented that there has been a drop in the level of activities.
He said that factories that hitherto engage the services of petroleum marketers to supply products have now started prioritising the usage of their plants.
Onuoma also said that some of the hotels he was supplying have started rationing the product and observing lights-out at certain times which he said did not happen before.
"In some big industries today, when production is not going on, they shut down their plant and switch to smaller generators for administrative works only"
"Some of the marketers who supply construction companies are equally out of business because the companies have not returned to site" he said.
On his part, a marketer, Mr. Fidel Ose equally confirmed that the situation at the depot has so deteriorated because almost all the commercial banks have blacklisted the oil and gas industry when it comes to lending.
"Because of the bad debt of the past, it has become difficult to get more funds. Some who also get funds from corporative societies can no longer get it because money is not being generated. Many people have withdrawn from the corporative"
"The Federal Government had arranged a programme where PMS would not be sold for more than N145 per litre while the go-between for marketers would not be more than N20. But presently, go-between has been reduced because marketers are selling the product more than they are supposed to. They sell for N130 while it's not supposed to be more than N110"
"This is a tactical way of forcing the government to push up the price of the product" he said.
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