NNPC Begins N15bn Refund to Oil Marketers Following DSS Mediation, IPMAN Confirms

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Capitalwatchmedia

Oil marketers have confirmed that NNPC has started refunding the N15bn owed to them for petrol supply payments.

Oil marketers on Sunday, confirmed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) had started refunding the N15 billion owed its members by the national oil company.

Before the current developments in the downstream sector, the oil sector players under the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), said that they had paid the money to the NNPC for supply of petrol.

However, members of the association said that they were neither supplied nor reimbursed the funds, but that instead the NNPC was asking its members to augment the payment that was made months ago.

“It is unacceptable for the NNPC to ask us to add more money after withholding our payments for months without supplying the product,” Maigandi Shettima, head of the group had lamented during a television interview.

“Roughly, the amount we have paid is almost N15 billion. Our money has been with the NNPC for nearly three months, and they have yet to provide the product we paid for. Now, they are asking us to pay the difference,” Shettima added.

But speaking on the issue in an interview on Sunday, IPMAN spokesman, Chief Chinedu Ukadike,  said that the NNPC had started refunding the monies to the marketers’ wallets with the oil company after the Department of State Service (DSS) brokered a peace deal.

“We went to a meeting with the Director of the DSS who intervened in our matter,” Ukadike stated.

But the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, last Friday explained that the direct purchase mechanism will henceforth allow marketers to negotiate commercial terms directly with the refineries, thereby fostering a more competitive market environment and enabling a smoother supply chain.

Edun, who is the Chairman of the Implementation Committee on Domestic Sales of Crude Oil in Local Currency, said the “New Direct Purchase Model,”  was the most significant change under the new regime which now allows petroleum product marketers to purchase petrol directly from local refineries.

“This direct purchasing mechanism allows marketers to negotiate commercial terms directly with the refineries, fostering a more competitive market environment and enabling a smoother supply chain for petroleum products,” he stated.

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