The Petroleum Product Retail Outlet Owners Association(PETROAN) has explained that the N100 billion intervention request from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not free money but rather an investment into the country’s energy sector to save the industry from collapse.
The National President of PETROAN, Billy Gillis-Harry, who stated this during an interview with an online medium, said the N100 billion intervention would be placed in an energy bank where its members could access single-digit loans to ease the nationwide supply of petroleum products to Nigerians.
According to him, the interest rate attached to loans from commercial banks makes it extremely difficult for petrol dealers to survive.
Gills –Harry added that approval of the fund by the current administration will help bring down the price of Premium Motor Spirit, which currently sells between N935 and N1,100 per litre across Nigeria.
“Today, you can see us asking the government to give us N100bn as seed into the energy bank.
“We didn’t say they should give us free money. We said, ‘Put it in the energy bank and give it to us as a single-digit interest loan.’ With that, the fuel price will come down.
“We are only saying that the government should put the grant in Nigeria’s energy bank. Set up the energy bank of Nigeria and put the N100bn there as seed capital. N100bn is nothing, but it’s going to change the content of the business,” he said.
