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Traffic
gridlock on the Outer-Northern Expressway on the Kagini interchange across the
railway near Kubwa in Abuja yesterday
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The
Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), the umbrella
organization of all commercial vehicle owners and petrol tanker drivers in
Nigeria, has threatened to withdraw its services in seven days if outstanding
claims owed to its members by government and oil marketers are not paid.
Daily Trust report continues:
The claims relate to
monies owed them for transporting petroleum products to different destinations
across the country.
The federal government
had in January 2016 reviewed downwards, the freight rate due to the transporters
which they rejected. The rate lasted till May 11 but government on May 20
increased the rate.
Giving the warning after
an emergency meeting in Abuja yesterday, NARTO President, Alhaji Kassim
Bataiya, said the transporters’ major demand was the immediate full payment of
their accrued outstanding claims from January to May 2016 at the old rate
applicable from 2011 to December 2015 by the Petroleum Equalization Fund (PEF)
Management Board.
“If by seven days from
today all the authorities concerned do not do what they are expected to do, we
will withdraw our services, meaning that we will park our trucks in our garages
and the trucks will not move anywhere,” Bataiya warned.
The implication, according stakeholders, is that there will be no movement of petroleum products nationwide as 98 per cent of petroleum products are distributed via trucks.
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