The National President of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN), Billy Gills-Harry, has asked the federal government to declare a state of emergency on the country’s rail and other transport networks as part of moves to crash the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).
The PETROAN president said an efficient train service and good roads will lead to a reduction in the cost of transporting petroleum products.
Gills-Harry said this while discussing issues around the country’s downstream petroleum sector.
He said PETROAN has ensured the government declared a state of emergency on the refining capacity of Nigeria, adding that it led to the restreaming of the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries by Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd. (NNPC) and the commencement of the Dangote Refinery.
“We are very thankful for Dangote’s rise to the occasion, NNPC’s rise to ensuring that what is being touted is working, that refineries for NNPC are working.
“We have Aradel coming on board; we have Edo refinery there; we have the Niger Delta refinery. All these refining capacities should make Nigeria self-sufficient in product availability,” he added.
But he said prices of products will be cheaper if the government maintains the naira for crude sales and for the government to address issues around the country’s transportation system.
He said, “The Naira for crude should continue and we should start to tinker with the mechanics of how we should not depend on the Naira confession value for that trade because we should at all times be looking to give advantage to our Nigerian Naira to increase because we have quite a lot of things that we can do if we even depend on our currency to do business within ourselves.
“We should quickly start working on our transportation system. We should make sure that our railways are working and the railways are all tied into all the depots in the country.
“That’s another policy that we’ll advocate should start immediately. We’ll also still keep on reminding the government that if they create the Energy Bank as a policy for Nigerians, it will go a long way in reducing the cost of money that we do business with.”
The Dangote Refinery announced a slash in PMS price by N60 on Saturday following a fall in crude oil price, but PETROAN said the new price will not reflect immediately due to old stock.
The PETROAN boss said, “If Dangote gives us a product at N800, just a bit plus and we start to buy that product, of course, it will reflect in our retail outlets.
“It’s simple; we get from the source, and of course don’t forget that PETROAN is already going into a major working relationship with Dangote and MRS. So that is going to really help also in making sure that our retail outlets sell products at a uniform price.
“You can’t see it immediately because we’ve already bought products; we’ve already, you know, purchased different kinds of products that are in our retail outlet now and the price that it was prior to this change.
“So the moment we lose N16 in that transaction, we are out of business.”
Declare Emergency On Rail, Others For PMS To Be Cheaper, PETROAN Tells FG is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
Source: The Whistler
