DAILY TRUST
The Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) has vowed to suspend operations on Monday.
Its National President, Alhaji Yusuf Lawal Othman, made this known in a press statement he issued in Abuja on Thursday.
He noted that the statement is an official announcement from the association’s headquarters that the members are parking their trucks from Monday.
He stressed that “Why? Because what we spend on operation is more than what we get in total: both in local and bridging.”
According to him, the members have been operating at a loss and it is no longer sustainable for them to endure the losses.
The President said, “We will have to suspend operations from Monday. We cannot continue to operate at a loss. Most people have parked. A lot more are going to park.”
The President disclosed that NARTO’s efforts at soliciting the intervention of all the key stakeholders in the Federal Government and industry have not yielded positive results.
Othman revealed that the association has written letters to table the plight of unbearable cost of operation to the Chief of Staff to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Minister of Petroleum Resources; Director General, Department of State Services (DSS); Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) Chief Executive Officer; Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) Group Chief Executive Officer; and the Marketers.
He said: “We have written letters up to the level of the Chief of Staff. We have written to the Honourable Minister of Petroleum Resources (Oil) . I will send you the copy. We have written to DG SSS. We have written to the GCEO.
“We have written to the Authority Chief Executive. We have written to the Major Marketers.”
He stressed that despite the notification to the above stakeholders, “No response.”
Analysing the market situation, which the members have endured for several months, he recalled that the same freight rate that was in force while President Muhammadu Buhari was in government is still subsisting.
