The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has sealed up 96 petrol stations in Kano and Jigawa states for, among other offences, selling Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS) above the official pump price of N145 per litre.
Other offences include diversion, hoarding, under-delivery of petroleum products, the usage of faulty pumps to dispense fuel, as well as perpetual violation of seal order.
The Operations Comptroller in charge of Kano and Jigawa, Mr. Buba Abubakar, said six out of the total number have been shut down for six months, with a fine of N1 million each, for perpetually selling above the pump price despite persistent warnings, and outright violation of seal order.
“Most of the filling stations have paid their fines, which is N270 per litre of fuel multiplied by the quantity of fuel for which the filling station is found wanting,”
According to Abubakar, the operations were carried out by DPR surveillance teams, involving the Directorate of State Security and other sister agencies.
He said the 96 stations were shut between December, 2017 and February 13 this year.
However, the comptroller, lamented that Kano and Jigawa states were currently being under supplied with petroleum products as they have on the average just 30% and 20% respectively of their daily supply needs.
“Kano, for example, needs about 87 trucks of 33,000 liters per day to wet the city but currently we are only getting between 30 percent while Jigawa is getting only 20 percent of its daily need. But the supply is getting increased gradually by the NNPC by the addition of one or two trucks on some days,” he explained.
He said despite the short fall, the DPR is working round the clock to ensure that any quantity of fuel supplied to the state is properly monitored for effective dispensing and sale to the public at the official pump price.
Meanwhile, he said the DPR is to announce to the public daily, the number of trucks allocated to the state and the filling stations.
He said the regulatory agency is working against the field day, some black marketers are enjoying because of round tripping caused by taxi drivers and Tricycle riders, who buy at the official price from filling stations and go to off-load it for black marketers to sell at higher cost to the public and come back to join the queue.
“We have instructed filling station to sell to one taxi and one tricycle per day to curb this round tripping.”
He denied the allegation of connivance with marketers who sell above the pump price to the public.
“Normally, we monitor them for between three and four hours when they have supplies at their filling station but sometimes, when we move to other stations they begin to sell at higher cost and the numbers of DPR staff for the operations is not enough to monitor them at a go. However we are doing our best otherwise it could have been worse,” noted Abubakar.
Fuel scarcity in Kano, like in other parts of the country, reared its ugly head in early November, 2017.
