THE President of Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN), Musa Isiiwele has asked the Federal Government to relinquish control of the distribution of fuel in the country as the only way to end scarcity crisis of the commodity in Nigeria.
Speaking with newsmen in Abuja on Tuesday, Musa stated that, “I call on the government to hands off on fuel, if the government says today I have no hand in fuel, you will see the availability of fuel and the price will come down.”
He said the association has always controlled the price of transport fare in the country but lamented that under the current circumstance of unofficial increase in pump price by filling stations, motorists are forced to charge based on how much they getting the product from filling stations.
“Filling station outside Abuja is no longer selling fuel with the meter, they are selling with the calculator, when I travelled, right from Abaji, they were selling N200,00 per litre, if you don’t want to buy with the calculator, you leave. If you are going to Nasarawa, the same calculator.”
“It is only within Abuja town here that filling stations are selling at the normal price. With this crisis at hand, you can not control the price of transport fare again. Imagine, a taxi driver is balancing N3,000 a day, they drive these vehicles on higher purchase, they have maybe N100,000 to pay in a month, if these vehicles are parked in a filling station for a long time, how do you expect they drivers to charge the normal fare and balance their payment” Musa questioned.
He said “for now there is no control price for transport fare until the issue of fuel crisis is over. We can not carry passengers as usual until fuel availability normalized.”
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