Members of the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria, Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria and the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria on Thursday declared that the government and its agencies should not kill oil marketers’ businesses with multiple taxation. DAPPMAN, MOMAN and IPMAN made the call at a stakeholders’ meeting on compliance monitoring of the midstream and downstream oil sector organized by the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency in Abuja.
Also at the event, the Director General, NOSDRA, Idris Musa, told the oil marketers that his agency was now set to monitor operations in the midstream and downstream oil sector, adding that it would further enforce stipulated regulations. “We have seen a lot of oil pollution from midstream and downstream operations and we want those operating in these arms of the sector to understand some of the activities we will be carrying out shortly, just as we’ve been doing with those in the upstream arm of the industry,” Musa stated. He added, “So NOSDRA will start sending officers to oil stations belonging to members of DAPPMAN, MOMAN and IPMAN to ensure that your underground storage tanks and other facilities are in compliance with our regulations in order to effectively mitigate the pollution of our ground water and other parts of the environment.” Responding to comments made by the NOSDRA boss, the Executive Secretary, DAPPMAN, Olufemi Adewole, stated that ironically executive members of the oil marketers’ associations were just coming from a meeting where the issue of multiple taxation on marketers was discussed. He said, “For this same business of ours, the Department of Petroleum Resources, Federal Ministry of Environment, state governments and their agencies, as well as many others come with various tax demands. With all these taxes, how can the marketer break even? “Our plea is that when taxing marketers, do it in a way that our businesses are not forced to close down. This is because right now oil marketers are closing shop on a monthly basis due to the high cost of operation and excessive taxation. This, of course, is not healthy for our economy and the nation.” Adewole noted that the landing cost of petrol was over N200 per liter and that the government was spending about N700 annually in subsiding the commodity, adding that this was too high for marketers, which was why they (marketers) stopped importing the commodity. He urged NOSDRA to work in synergy with the Federal Ministry of Environment and other similar agencies in states so as to reduce the multiple taxes levied on marketers. Both the Executive Secretary of MOMAN, Clement Isong, and the National Vice Chairman, IPMAN, Abubakar Maigandi, corroborated the position of Adewole and urged the agency and the government to approach the matter pragmatically if they wanted the pump price of petrol to remain within the reach of the masses. But in a quick response to their concerns, the NOSDRA boss explained that what his agency was looking at was not majorly about taxation or to levy oil marketers.
Source: Punch
