NNPC and Oil Marketers have disagreed over the fuel subsidy regime contract.
Newsonline Nigeria reports that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has informed members of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) to take delivery of petrol they paid for during the subsidy regime at a new price that includes the Value Added Tax (VAT).
This Nigeria News platform understands that NNPC said the independent petroleum marketers that are not willing to take delivery of their outstanding tickets (petrol already paid for, but yet to be delivered) will be refunded the money they initially paid for the product.
IPMAN Chairman, Suleja Branch, Yahaya Alhassan, revealed the new development, hinting that the NNPC wants to cancel the previous trade agreement concluded during the subsidy regime and conduct a new transaction on the product that should have been delivered before President Bola Tinubu stopped subsidising the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as fuel.
“For the outstanding tickets, up till now they have not attended to us. What they (NNPCL) are even saying now is that they (marketers) should put VAT for the ticket.
“This was the money we paid before subsidy was removed. We got this information after Salah, which is this week,” Alhassan said in a report by The Nation.
Alhassan said there’s confusion around outstanding bridging claims and old petrol tickets owed to the marketers, stating that there is a need to explain the situation to Tinubu, “We have to explain to the President that is the only way we can solve that problem,” he said.
According to him, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) owes marketers outstanding bridging claims, while the NNPC owes old petrol tickets.
He said the bridging claims is paid to keep uniform prices across fuel stations before the removal of subsidy, “I want the Federal Government to know that bridging claim is different from subsidy. We are supporting the removal of subsidy.
“IPMAN members are not among those who benefited from subsidy,” Alhassan noted, adding that, “The bridging claim is our own money. Any money that any marketers pays, the transport money is there, which we are contributing.”
