The Bola Tinubu-led government is set to meet with the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) leadership to avert the planned suspension of operations.

In the letter, NARTO said the high freight rates and cost of operations are responsible for their plan to park their vehicles and stop lifting fuel beginning today.

In a chat with Punch, NARTO’s President, Yusuf Othman, said his members and oil marketers had been meeting since Saturday based on the orders of the Federal Government.

Othman disclosed that the downstream regulator and the Ministry of Petroleum would meet with NARTO members and other parties today in Abuja to sort out the issues.

He stated that oil marketers and his executives met about six times in the last two days to avert a threat to halt the lifting of petroleum products in the country.

Othman added that NARTO members are not going on strike but withdrawing their services because they are not employees but business people.

He said: “We are discussing with the marketers, and they have proposed some increase in the transportation arrangement, and right now, we are discussing with our executives with a view to consider the matter.

“But you know this has nothing to do with the government because the government no longer has a hand in the payment of transportation for products. It is purely for marketers that we provide the services to.”

Othman said the letter to the Petroleum Minister, Department of State Services (DSS) and other Federal Government agencies was to alert the government to intervene.

He said: “Yes, it was for them to intervene, not that they should pay, at least for them to see reasons why they need to talk to the other parties because the government naturally has to be an arbiter.

“In a free market, the government cannot just fold its arms and say everybody should do whatever they like. And this is the time we are oppressed downstream because most of the marketers have increased their pump prices, but they have not increased our freight rates.

“So since the time we issued the letters, we’ve met with the marketers about four to five times, and we are meeting later this (Sunday) evening. And I do hope we will be able to conclude before Monday, otherwise, we will withdraw our services.

“It is not a strike, because we are not employees, we are business people, we will just withdraw our services. But I don’t want to believe that it will not be resolved before then because everybody is aware of their responsibilities.”

On whether NARTO was getting the desired response from marketers, Othman replied, “We’ve met almost six times. Today (Sunday) we met three times, yesterday (Saturday) we met three times and we are going to meet again later this (Sunday) evening.

“The government has directed them that they must negotiate with us, because they have seen reasons why we have to get some improvement in our freight rates, in view of the high operational cost. So there is hope.”