The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has blamed Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over its inability to service debts owed some commercial banks, leading to threats for take-over of its members businesses by these banks.

Vice President, IPMAN, Abubakar Dankigari, who disclosed this in Abuja, said the marketers could not service their loans because the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had refused to supply their over N60 billion petrol tickets since two years ago.

He revealed that instead of loading whatever volume of petrol the over N60 billion can buy at the new pump price, the NNPC was requesting them to pay the balance before providing the products.

He added that it was even now cheaper to buy petrol from independent depots than NNPC, which had used the ploy to tie down their fund.

He noted that the marketers know that even after paying the balance that NNPC was requesting for, it would still take a long time for them to get the products, noting that they had resorted to patronise the private depots.

He said: “The implication is so high because we borrow most of the money from the bank. Automatically if NNPC refuses to load, you will find out that some of our marketers will lose their filling stations.

“Already the banks are in courts with some of the filling stations because they failed to repay the banks. So, I am advising the NNPC to try as much as possible to load the product to the marketers so that the marketers don’t lose their filling stations. And you know that losing their filling stations means a creation of another unemployment.”

He called on the NNPC to either refund the money to the marketers or sell what their outstanding N60 billion can buy to them, adding that it would be better to recover the amount and buy from the private depots.

•Source: Blueprint.