By Benjamin Adeyemi, Kaduna
Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), on Thursday warned erring independent oil marketers against under dispensing, hoarding and selling petrol above the government approved regulated pump price litre in the zone.
The DPR Northwest Zonal Operations Controller, Kaduna, Alhaji Ahmed Rufa’i Shakur, issued the warning while inspecting petroleum filling stations in Kaduna, to ensure compliance with the approved price band of N162 to N165 and guard against hoarding.
Shakur pointed out that, the current fuel scarcity situation in Kaduna was as result of panic buying by motorists or the location of filing stations across the state
He however told motorists that, there was no need for panic buying as there was enough petrol to serve the state and even beyond the zone, comprising of Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Sokoto and Zamfara.
According to him, the agency will not hesitate to sanction any filing station for offences ranging from hoarding to under dispensing of the product.
He also assured residents that the DPR was doing everything possible to ensure petrol was available in every part of the state in order to clear the long queue across part of the state.
He noted that officials of the agency had since Monday, begun surveillance exercise with the view to ensuring that members of the unsuspecting public were not defrauded by unscrupulous oil marketers
The DPR boss said, “we are in a regulated regime. However, there is approved price for Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) and that’s why our men are out since Monday to ensure compliance with the approved government price and the second thing we are after during our surveillance outing is quality control.
“We have to ensure that the product that are being sold to members of the public are genuine. We don’t want adulterated products to be sold to members of the public.
“For us in our operational areas we have been on top of the game and that is why we have very little incidences of queue and even where you have such queues is as result of panic buying and maybe location of the filling stations.
“Other than that our operations have been smooth and we want to assure members of the public that our men will be on duty everyday of the week and even after the pressure is less, we will still be on spot checks to make sure members of the public are not defrauded. We solicit for your continued support on our efforts to clear the queues in the filling stations.”
The DPR officials went round Kaduna metropolis to ensure strict compliance with the regulated pump price band of N162 to N165 per litre and check the availability of products to avoid scarcity of fuel across the state.
