As Nigerians battle the persistent fuel crisis, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company has shut its petrol application portal against marketers, suspending fresh orders due to a huge backlog that has not been cleared.
At the moment, marketers said they could not access the portal through which they apply to NNPC for the purchase of petrol. Our correspondent gathered that the marketers usually bid for PMS through the NNPC portal.
According to them, payments will be made through the same channel while the marketer waits for months to get the product. Independent marketers told The PUNCH that NNPC owes them billions of naira, saying they paid the money for fuel but were not supplied after three months.
Recently, officials of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, reported that NNPC had stopped loading the trucks of IPMAN members, especially after the recent hike in petrol prices. IPMAN members operate over 70 per cent of filling stations nationwide.
They expressed concern that the state-owned energy company did not attend to them despite having paid for petrol about two months ago. This, they said, made them resort to patronising private depots who sell to them at higher rates.
