
The National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) workers on Monday urged the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to reduce fuel scarcity by increasing supply. Mr Tokunbo Korodo, the union’s Chairman, South-West, told the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos that the product was being rationed due to insufficiency.
Kododo alleged that 33,000 litres of petrol were being shared among three tankers which had waited for almost 72 hours without the products. He advised the corporation to tell Nigerians the true position regarding its availability. “We are appealing to the NNPC to increase the supply of the product to depots because our trucks are just queuing at the depots without loading the product. “A tanker that is supposed to lift between 33, 000 litres and 40, 000 litres is allocated only 11,000 litres at the depot. “This will definitely result to scarcity because filling stations will not have enough to sell. “The corporation should let us know if the product is not available as they claimed,” he said.
Meanwhile, reports have shown there is scarcity of petrol as most filling stations in Lagos were not selling and locked the barriers leading into their premises. Mr Femi Jegede, a civil servant with the Lagos State government, condemned the incessant scarcity and called on the Federal Government to resolve the matter before it was too late. Jegede urged the government to pay oil marketers their subsidy claims for them to commence the importation of fuel.
He alleged that some filling stations were extorting their buyers by selling petrol at between N100 per litre and N120 per litre to them instead of N87; which is the government approved price per litre .
A manager with a filling station appealed to depots’ officials to accelerate loading so that the product would be available at the filling stations on time.
Source: NAN