Oil marketers in the country have been flouting
the directives of the Department of Petroleum Resources by tampering with pumps
in their filling stations in order to hoodwink customers into believing that
they are buying petrol at the official N97 per litre, whereas they are actually
paying more.
Majority of the filling stations that were
previously selling petrol above N97 per litre, our correspondent learnt, had
devised a new method of operation – opening up for business in the evenings to
beat DPR officials going around for undercover monitoring during daytime.
However, the President, Nigeria Union of
Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, South-West branch, Alhaji Tokunbo Korodo,
who spoke to our correspondent on the telephone, said most marketers were
currently buying fuel above the ex-depot price of N87.90 per litre.
He said the product supply situation at the
depots was not encouraging and that most marketers had no choice than to buy
above the ex-depot price, with the intention of selling above N97 or dubiously
altering their pumps.
The marketers had earlier said the current fuel
scarcity being experienced in many parts of the country might linger for a
while because the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation was supplying the
product to only six out of the 50 depots in Lagos.
They said fuel shortage in Lagos, Ogun, Oyo and
other states of the federation might get out of hand if the NNPC did not
immediately involve other depots in the supply chain.
Korodo had also complained of congestion in Lagos
because marketers from other states were now coming to the state for petrol.
He had said, “I don’t know why the NNPC cannot
expand its supply. I believe the NNPC will exhaust the product it has if it
tries this. If it is not ready to expand, then the problem will continue.
“Now, most marketers are not willing to buy
products at all because if they buy at a higher price and sell above N97, the
DPR will shut their stations. So, they are just relaxing.”
The Director, DPR, Mr. Osten Olorunsola, had also
told our correspondent that the department was not resting on its oars as far
as due monitoring of the downstream sub-sector was concerned.
He said the DPR monitoring team was on the
lookout for marketers selling 0.6 litres for the price of one litre, as was the
case in some areas, adding that Nigerians should support it when it performed
its tasks as a regulator.
Our correspondent learnt that in some cases where
the DPR had gone to seal filling stations selling above N97 per litre, people
who had been queuing to buy petrol for a while opposed the action.
The Punch
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