Marketers swindle kerosene consumers N800m daily –Investigations

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Marketers of petroleum products and their agents may have been extorting kerosene consumers an estimated N800m daily if official statistics are used as basis of demand.

National Mirror gathered from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, that national daily consumption of kerosene currently stood at eight million litres. The official supply price to the market is N50 per litre.

However, users get the product at varying prices that range between N130 and N200 per litre, depending on their locations.

A market survey conducted in Lagos and its environs showed that major marketers, including Mobil Nigeria Plc, Conoil Nigeria Plc, MRS and Oando Nigeria Plc, did not have the product in their retail outlets.

The Executive Secretary, Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, MOMAN, Mr. Thomas Olawore, said that the major marketers did not sell the product because they did not have allocation from the NNPC.

He noted that the major marketers could not market the product because they did not have allocation.

Olawore lamented that marketers could not import because they were not permitted to make claim or seek reimbursement from the government.

“It is only the NNPC that can import kerosene because the Corporation has over the years been permitted to make claims from the Federal Government,” Olawore said.

He said it would not make any economic sense for marketers to import the product from the global market at a higher price to sell at lower price in the domestic market which the price is regulated by the government.

The survey showed that only small scale retailers had commercial stocks of the product for sale at exorbitant prices (between N130 and N200 per litre).

“We always have stocks to sell to our customers because we have people who bring it in tankers to deliver to us,” said one retailer at Mile 12, Lagos.

The details of the present price regime could not be ascertained at the weekend as the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA website had been shut for reconstruction. E

fforts to reach officials of the agency did not yield any result as calls made to their phones were not responded to.

The General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the NNPC, Mr. Ohi Alegbe, said the corporation had initiated a scheme aimed at cutting off the several layers of middlemen who made it difficult for the end user to enjoy the subsidy on the product.

He said this would be done through the ‘Kero Correct’ initiative, which the corporation claimed had commenced.

The Executive Director, Commercial, of the Pipeline and Products Marketing Company, PPMC, Mr. Frank Amego, explained that the new initiative was aimed at getting kerosene to the masses at the right price.

He noted that the Nigerian masses had not been enjoying the subsidy because of the long arbitrage system involved in its distribution and retail, diversion of the product by marketers to the construction industry where it is used for blending bitumen.

Amego said this happened mainly because NNPC had no direct control over most of the marketers involved in the distribution and sales of the product.

According to him, the Kero Correct initiative is designed to distribute and sell kerosene directly to end users from NNPC retail mega and affiliate stations across the country at the government-regulated price of N50 per litre to ensure effective control.

He assured that PPMC had enough stock of kerosene and that machinery had been provided to ensure efficient distribution of the product from Lagos and Oghara to NNPC retail mega and affiliate stations nationwide.

The General Manager, NNPC Retail, Mr. Ufford Ibanga, assured that all of the 524 NNPC retail mega, floating mega and affiliate stations across the country had been keyed up for the Kero Correct scheme.

He explained that the volunteers were being brought into the project to help monitor discharge and sales of the product to serve as an independent feedback system aimed at promoting transparency and ensuring that the product gets to the desired end users. The scheme will involve the distribution of 1,500 trucks of kerosene across NNPC retail’s mega and affiliate stations across the country to ensure that each consumer gets at least 25 litres of the product over the next three months.