‘Stop Giving Allocation To Portfolio Oil Marketers’

Following the inability of
some petroleum tank farms to secure import allocation from the government in 2015, a member of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTO) branch of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) and Vice Chairman of Ascon Unit, Comrade Owolabi Jimoh, has called for proper monitoring of import allocation distribution.
Awolabi urged the government to ensure that it pays more attention to the activities of some of the petroleum tank farms, especially those situated in Lagos.
He suggested that government should stop giving import allocation to portfolio marketers who do not own tank farms, and noted that this has been the bane of fuel distribution in Nigeria.
According to him, some of the marketers collect the allocation and sell it off in Ghana and other neighbouring countries rather than giving it directly to Nigeria importers.
Owolabi pointed out that the fuel that is being distributed today are part of allocation for the last quarter of the year 2014.
He further alleged that capital oil has been the only depot having regular supply of fuel while other tank farms have been rendered jobless and called on government to ensure equal distribution of the allocation.
He suggested that allocation should be given directly to depot owners and not portfolio marketers, to avoid crisis.
“The whole country depends on Lagos, about 67 tank farms are in Lagos and that is why there has not been any crisis, but if you go to many of these tank farms, you will not find them selling product, yet the depot owner will pay his staff and pay tax, tenement rate and so on”, he said.