Fresh investigations carried out at the petroleum tank farms in Lagos have revealed that some unscrupulous officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) are collaborating with private depot owners to create artificial scarcity of petrol in the country by selling petrol above the ex-depot price of N133.28 per litre and making cool cash.
Shipping Position Daily last week gathered that currently, most private depots in Apapa do not have petrol, while the few that have the product are merely holding it in stock for the NNPC. According to sources who pleaded anonymity, the depots rather than sell at N133.28 per litre to tanker drivers, they sell for between N158 and N162 per litre.
It was also gathered that trucks from the East and other parts of the country that are far from the Lagos ports make higher offer to the depots because petrol sells at such places at over N145 per litre. In some states, petrol sells for N180 and N200 per litre.
Shipping Position Daily leant that when this happens, other trucks from the West and closer states are made to stay for several days on the queue, thereby causing traffic jam on the already dilapidated Apapa expressway.
Even though the NNPC is now the sole importer of petrol in Nigeria, most of its depots across the country are not working. The NNPC has been paying commission to private owners for the use of their facilities.
Comrade Tayo Owonikoko, a chieftain of ASCON unit of NUPENG told our correspondent that there is no strict regulation at some of the NNPC hired facilities. He said, “we are at the mercy of private depot owners, even the government officials that are supposed to check their activities at the depot have been compromised, especially the DPR officials attached to the depot, what determines your stay on the line in Apapa is how much you are ready to pay for the product, there is no more regulation from the government”
He said that under the arrangement the depots had with the NNPC, the NNPC authorizes the truck to load at any of such depots. However, due to the large number of trucks waiting to load, this causes scarcity. Such depots now take advantage of the high demand to hike the price.
Some marketers confirm that some NNPC officials connive with private depot owners to divert petrol meant for Pipeline and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), an arm of NNPC, to private depots, pay throughput charges, to sell above ex-depot prices.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Natural Resource Charter (NNRC) has disclosed that regulatory authorities in the Nigeria petroleum industry lack the requisite capacity to effectively monitor operations of companies in the industry.
This was contained in NNRC’s presentation of the summary of findings from the 2017 Benchmarking Exercise Report in Abuja, heralding the actual launch of the report later this month.
It lamented that the regulatory authorities, especially the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), do not have sufficient capacity to verify all the various types of geological, geophysical and technical data periodically reported by the operating companies.
It, however, noted that the responsible institutions should be strengthened to enhance their effectiveness.
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