The Petroleum Dealers Association (PDA) has written State-owned fuel distributor, National Petroleum Marketing Company Limited (NP), seeking a 30-day credit in light of the COVID-19 pandemic saying it could mean the difference between workers being employed or losing their jobs.
President of the PDA, Robin Naraynsingh explained that the dealers' businesses are based on a cash-on-delivery operation and what they want is a 30-day grace period to pay NP for fuel.
He warned that some gas stations will be forced to close their doors permanently if they continue to lose money.
Naraynsingh claimed that based on his information four gas stations have temporarily closed their doors as a result of the situation.
The President of the PDA told the Sunday Guardian that the retail petroleum sector is considered an essential service and there are 150 members of the PDA.
He explained that gas station dealers are hurting because there are no cars on the roads.
"The country is running at one-third capacity. In order to pick up the slack, there must be cash flow as we operate on really small margins. We want to have enough funds to pay our workers, to pay for goods and services so we can pass it on to the one-third of the population that is still mobile and still essential service. We need significant cash flow to pay for all of this,” Naraynsingh said.
“Our staff have families and expenses. We have to take care of them and the dealers are at pains to take care of them. When I tie up my cash when they take cash-on-delivery, it takes another two weeks to sell out that product frtheinventory. But we need to have cash in these times to pay salaries so people could buy groceries and other needs they have.”
He said they wrote to NP asking for a 30-day credit. "Instead of coming to us and ask what we are doing, they went behind our backs and made different deals with different people. This credit is to pay workers and other expenses. We are not asking for anything free, we just asking for an extended time to pay.
“NP is a wholesaler and they don’t have to spend money. They get credit from Paria, they sell it to us, cash on delivery.”
He said Minister of Energy Franklin Khan has not shown any concern for their problems and he has not attempted to contact them.
“How can you not talk to the actual people spending their money and are actually hurting. He never called to say, hey guys, how could I help in these times of crisis?”
Sunday Guardian’s attempts to reach the Energy Minister for a comment on the issue were not successful.