Port Harcourt, Feb. 7, 2023 – The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has blamed the independent marketers for the fuel crises across the country.
The union blamed the problem on the attitude of independent marketers who keep changing the pump price with impunity.
Ikechukwu Onyefuru, the TUC Chairman in Rivers State, said this at a news conference in Port Harcourt.
He said that the independent marketers were now lords unto themselves that would fix petrol prices as the wished.
“We know the issues around the availability of petroleum products where pump price of petrol in Rivers State is averaging over N400 per litre as we speak.
“This is against the official rate that we all know and which the government has not come out clearly to say: we have increased or not.
“If you move around Port Harcourt and its environs, you will see long queues everywhere.
“Not just that there are long queues, the product is not even available for motorists in Rivers State to access.
“If we have the distribution networks working and we have all the receiving facilities waiting, you will discover that we will have products available in all the facilities across the country,” he said.
Onyefuru said Nigeria was now at the mercy of private facility owners who, he said, were also in business to make money.
“When they receive products they have to do the necessary markup based on the price with which they are given petroleum products to sell to Nigerians.
“And all these culminate into what we see today where, especially in Rivers State, we don’t have products anywhere.
“In some filling stations, PMS sells as high as N500 per litre where you even see it.
“Marketers are now proud and bold to change the pump prices to N400 and N500 with impunity.
“In the past, it wasn’t done. Even when they try to sell above pump price, they hide it. But today they do that with such boldness,” he said. (GBN)
