The President of factional Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Chinedu Okoronkwo urged its members to buy and sell petroleum products at government-regulated prices to avoid incurring avoidable regulatory penalties from the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and other related government agencies.
Okoronkwo, who spoke to journalists at the end of IPMAN’s Central Working Committee meeting in Abuja said it was critical that products are made available to IPMAN members to ensure that scarcity of the fuel is avoided as well as its members selling to consumers at the right price.
He called for the federal government’s intervention in its members’ demand for access to private and government operated depots to procure petrol, adding that some of its members are yet to obtain products from some depots four months after payments have been made.
According to him: “In our CWC today we got complaints about harassment from government agencies especially Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), and we have advised our members to comply with government approved rates.
“We are not going to encourage selling above government approved pump price. I want o also use this opportunity to implore government to also talk to the private depot owners to sell the products at a price that our members can access. It takes two to move forward.”
He further said that: “Government is doing everything to solve the problem and the duty is on everybody to work assiduously to ensure that all the citizenry of this nation access this product at the price that is approved.
“We have said to our members, don’t go and sell at a price that would attract the wrought of government. Government has their template and everything, buy at that rate where you can sell within the given rate of N87/litre.”
Okoronkwo equally explained that the meeting dealt extensively on the fuel situation in the country, “Because you can see that a lot of queues are forming already at the filling stations and it is as a result of not getting enough products from private and government depots.”
“Some of our members have paid for over four months without getting the products at government depots and some of our members borrowed these monies from the bank. But we have told them to buy and sell only at government approved price,” he added.
