Even as combatants in the alleged unfair handling of the second and third quarter fuel import allocation re-strategise, the agency at the centre of the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) allegation has lashed out at oil marketers saying that some of them were left out of the recent import allocation due to previous records of non-performance.
In a statement issued last week by the agency’s spokesman, Mr Lanre Oladele, PPPRA insisted that “the 2010 third quarter fuel import allocation was transparent” and that “priorities were given to companies that have the track record of importing the quantity of products assigned to them”.
Shipping Position Weekly recalls that some oil marketers, led by Capital Oil & Gas Industries had petitioned the National Assembly with allegations of biases in the controversial allocation. They equally dared PPPRA to publish the basis for the allocation as well as the credentials of the beneficiaries of the allocation.
Capital Oil had gone ahead to also accuse the PPPRA of deliberately killing and discouraging investment in the petroleum downstream sector by refusing to give allocations to genuine companies.
But, the PPPRA image maker denied all the allegations saying due process was followed and that only companies with records of delivery were granted approval
“Our data proves that most of these companies that are complaining import less than 30 per cent of the total quarterly volume allocated to them. Our records indicate that for over two and half years, the PPPRA has been giving allocation to a particular company that has not performed and this company is the one that is making the greatest noise,” he said.
He noted that the companies that failed to perform contributed largely to the last fuel crisis that crippled the downstream sector.
“The companies could not meet their obligation of bringing in products. Now that most of the problems bedevilling the downstream sector have been solved, especially payment of claims and the introduction of the Sovereign Debt Instrument (SDI), we found out that all the companies that ran away are now coming back to say they want to participate and we are not saying that they would not participate,” he added.
“Given the benefit of hindsight and our experience with some of them, we have to tread carefully, so that we don’t give them the prominence they were given, only to be messed up by them during the period of products scarcity. That is partly what has governed the third quarter imports volumes that were allocated,” he said.
“There is no way we can give NNPC an allocation of 1,000,000 metric tonnes and give an unknown company the same quantity. Our quarterly quota to these importers is based on available infrastructure and resources on ground. We know that NNPC and other major players have the highest number of the petroleum facilities in this country. You can’t compare them to any other company in the country,” he said.
“What we try to do in PPPRA is to ensure that importers with the right resources get a larger share of the importation quota because they possess the resources to deliver the products to where they are needed by Nigerians,” he added.
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