An aggressive policy that gives the building of new refineries a priority in the petroleum sector reform agenda is the one way of the quagmire which products scarcity has plunged this country into over the last couple of years.

Consequently, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has said that if the problem of products scarcity is to be addressed frontally, then the Federal Government needs to repair existing refineries and build new ones while at the same time encouraging private investors to build more refineries.

Rivers State Chairman of IPMAN, Chief Samuel Osaroejor, who said this while fielding questions exclusively from The Tide in his office, last week, also stressed that for the private investors to breakeven in the business, licenses given to some few Nigerians to import petroleum products should be withdrawn.

Osaroejor remarked that the refineries in the country were functioning far below installed capacity because all equipment used during their construction, and or some installed during the infrequent turn around maintenance (TAM) of the plants were obsolete.

On the availability of kerosene in the state, the IPMAN chairman restated the readiness of his members to make the product available at the official pump price of N50 per litre, saying that corruption was the major problem causing not just scarcity but high cost of the product in the state.

He decried a situation where even IPMAN executive members would not have kerosene in their filling stations, stressing that “there is no way I will have kerosene and will not sell at N50 per litre”, official pump price.

In another development, IPMAN’s Western Zone Chairman, Comrade Olumide Ogunmade has reiterated the association’s readiness to partner with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in making products available to Nigerians, if NNPC exhibits some level of sincerity in products distribution.

But Ogunmade attributed the inability of the oil-rich nation to make products available and affordable to Nigerians, 50 years after Independence, to undue bottlenecks created by the Pipelines Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of the NNPC which supplies and distributes petroleum products.

He reiterated that for government to get its ark right, it must make products available to independent marketers, who are closer to the people first, saying that the priority given to major marketers was not in the economic and security interest of the nation.

Ogunmade also alleged that PPMC does not accept drafts from independent marketers before they are allocated products while the major marketers’ drafts are honoured expressly, saying that it was unfair for the NNPC arm to discriminate against indigenous products marketing companies in the business of supplies and distribution of products.

The IPMAN boss challenged the PPMC to give equal opportunities to all marketers irrespective of their capital base and ownership structure, saying that the independent marketers were financially sound and had good reputation and integrity to run transparent and profitable businesses.

Vivian-Peace Nwinaene