NARTO urges FG to end lingering fuel crisis

The Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners has called on the Federal Government and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to find immediate and lasting solutions to the lingering problem of petroleum products scarcity in the country.
In a communiqué issued at the end of its 16th Annual General Meeting in Abuja, NARTO noted that the lingering fuel scarcity has continued to inflict increasing hardship and suffering on Nigerians.
The Association also said in the communiqué, signed by its National President, Alhaji Kassim Ibrahim Bataiya, that the Nigerian masses have to spend so much on commercial transport due to the sudden hike in transport fares occasioned by the scarcity.
As a way out of the fuel quagmire, NARTO called on the NNPC and one of its subsidiaries, the Pipeline and Products Marketing Company, to ensure the speedy repair of pipelines across the country for easy lifting of petroleum products to every nook and crannies of the nation.
The Association also urged the Federal Government to put in motion all necessary machineries that will ensure that refineries resume production as a way of enhancing local refining so as to solve the problem associated with importation of refined products, including the subsidy issue.
On the issue the transporters had with the Petroleum Equalization Fund Management Board, NARTO demanded that PEF should without delay settle all outstanding transporters freight claims, adding that the requirement of the 10-day delivery period from loading depots to other depots and retail ends should be temporarily put on hold until the bad condition of Nigeria’s roads is addressed.
It added: “We therefore call on the Federal Government to repair, reconstruct and construct roads across the country to urgently address the problem of road crashes and tanker explosions taking place on daily basis and its resultant loss of lives and destruction of property in our country.
“We also call on the National Assembly to promptly pass all relevant bills before them that affect the development and maintenance of road infrastructures in the country such as the proposed National Roads Fund Bill.  These bills when passed would revolutionize the system in the country.”
NARTO called on the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency to review the freight rate template, which it said had since gone obsolete and unrealistic in the face of the prevailing economic conditions in the country, adding that with the high exchange rate, high interest rate on bank borrowing, rising cost of spare parts and unfavourable customs tariffs, transporters are always at the receiving end, especially with the considerable fall in freight revenues.