- Sunday, May 19, 2024
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Over
6, 000 petrol stations across the country may be affected in a planned
delisting from the customer express portals of the Nigerian National Petroleum
Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum
Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), over their inability to meet up with the April
16, 2024 deadline to renew their operational licences with the agencies.
The
customer express portals are portals used by oil marketers to access and pay
for petroleum products in all the NNPC Limited depots as well as private depots
the NNPCL use for products storage and throughputs.
To
this end, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN),
an umbrella body of private oil marketers, said it has entered into discussions
with the NNPCL and NMDPRA with the aim of getting an extension to the deadline
from April to July, 2024, for processing of members’ licences.
The
IPMAN National President, Abubakar Maigandi, made this known in a telephone
chat with The Nation, yesterday. According to him, the negotiation has become
necessary because of the ripple effect it would have on the downstream oil
sector, especially on motorists and also marketers.
“We
are in negotiation with the NMDPRA and NNPCL to have a rethink and further
extend the deadline from April to maybe July or August because of the hardship
delisting our members will cause. You have to know that IPMAN constitute about
80 per cent of petrol retail outlets (filling stations) across the country; so
delisting a good number of such outlets will definitely have a telling effect
on the country,” he explained.
The
delay to the renewal of licences may not be unconnected to the bureaucracy from
the regulators’ end. Most of the marketers, it was gathered, had submitted
their payment receipts to the regulators, but these are yet to be processed.
Besides, the increase in cost of renewal is another bottleneck which has
delayed the process.
According
to Maigandi, the renewal fee which used to cost beteen N130, 000 and N150, 000
has been increased to about N1 million per filling station. This, IPMAN
believes, is on the high side. “The regulators also have a fault in the delay
because a lot of marketers have submitted their receipts for processing of
their licence but the NMDPRA has not been able to conclude and issue them their
certificates to operate. Also is the issue on the new rate of about N1 million
per filling station now being charged by the regulator. We are appealing to
them to review this downwards considering that we are indigenous marketers, so
if they run us out of business then who will run the business,” Maigandi
argued.
With
the April 16 deadline for renewal elapsing, over 6, 000 operators risk being
delisted because as at the expiration of the deadline on April 16, only 9,000
members’ licences were said to have being processed.
IPMAN,
in a press statement signed by its National Public Relations Officer (PRO),
Chinedu Ukadike, said the implication of this deadline is that once the
customer express portals are closed, the unprocessed licences will be delisted
shutting thousands of members out of business.
“We
are appealing that NMDPRA and NNPCL to extend the deadline of compliance by
marketers to July, so that the two agencies would be able to reconcile and
update their portals so that marketers will not be unduly marginalised.
Currently, the NNPCL portal is still closed because they are updating it,
meanwhile, their deadline is 16th of April, 2024,” the statement signed by
Ukadike read.
IPMAN
noted that extension of the deadline would enable marketers to reconcile their
licences and reduce panic buying by members of the public, which is aggravating
the present scarcity of petroleum products.
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