NARTO Threatens To Stop Lifting Petroleum Products from Monday, Next Week
The Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO)has announced that its members will stop loading petroleum products from Monday, next week.
The Union President, Yusuf Othman, announcing the decision in a statement issued on Thursday, said members would park their trucks on Monday, next week, until further notice.
He blamed the decision on the rising prices of diesel which has raised the cost of operating their haulage trucks, making them incur losses.
According to him, it was now difficult for members to operate the trucks with diesel whose price now ranges from N1,250 to N1,400 per liter.
Why? It is because what we spend on operations is more than what we get in total, both in local and bridging, he stated.
Othman said NARTO members had been operating at a loss and it was no longer sustainable for them to endure the losses.
We will have to suspend operations from now till on Monday. We cannot continue to operate at a loss. Most people have parked. A lot more are going to the park. But from the point of the association itself, we are going to suspend operations on Monday, he stated.
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He said NARTO’s efforts to get the intervention of key stakeholders, the Federal Government, and industry operators had not yielded positive results.
The NARTO president said the association had written letters on the unbearable cost of operations to the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu; Minister of Petroleum Resources; Department of State Services; Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority; Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited; and oil marketers.
He stressed that despite the letters, there has been no response.
Analyzing the market situation, which the members have endured for several months, he stated that the same freight rate that applied when former President Muhammadu Buhari was ruling, was still subsisting.
The Lagos to Abuja freight rate that was implemented when the dollar was N650 has still been retained now that the dollar is N1,615.
Everybody is aware that all our consumables in terms of operation are not produced in the country.
So, by the rate of dollars, every consumable has increased. But the freight they are paying us has been the same since Buhari’s time.
So how is that feasible? During Buhari’s time, one dollar was N650. Today, the dollar is N1,615. The average freight from Lagos to Abuja is N32, he stated.
Another issue is delayed payments, as late payments from oil marketers create cash flow problems for transporters.
Also, the association has called for safety because the theft of petroleum products, pipeline vandalism, and other security threats create risks for drivers and equipment.
On policy and regulatory concerns, NARTO had observed that some depots limit access to specific transporters, impacting competition and efficiency.
It stated that inconsistent or ambiguous regulations could lead to confusion and enforcement challenges, adding that transporters often struggled to access affordable financing for vehicle maintenance and upgrades.
