Chibisi Ohakah, Abuja
The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has explained that the 25 filling stations its operatives shut down in Jigawa and Kano committed offences ranging from violation of safety rules, under-dispensing of petroleum products to customers, outright diversion of the products, while some of them operated without valid authorization.
The Department said the decision to shut down the affected filling stations was after the inspection of about 217 filling stations within close to three weeks.
Some of the startling discoveries made by the DPR operatives was that most of fuel stations were selling at or below the government approved pump price of N145 per litre for the Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol.
The DPR Operations Controller for Kano and Jigawa states, Mr Musa Zarumi Tambawal, who led the inspection team during the operations on Thursday, said the stations would remain closed until further notice.
He informed that eight of the stations were shut down for under-dispensing products and shortchanging customers, 14 others were sanctioned for outright diversion of the products, while and six were found to be operating with expired licences.
Newsmen who were taken along during the sealing off exercise, observed that some of the affected filling stations were either dilapidated or undergoing renovation as they operated, which the DPR equally considered to be a violation of safety rules. Tambuwal alleged that in a particular case, about 40
000 litres of PMS was lifted and meant to be delivered to a certain Conoil station, but surprisingly was diverted to a yet to be determined destination.
“For every 10 litres, the station short-changed unsuspecting customers to about 300mls which by simple permutation meant that customers were paying above the government approved price of N145 to obtain a litre of PMS,” Tambuwal said. He stressed that investigations would still continue with the various cases, and depending on the nature and severity of each offender, the operating licences of some of the filling stations may be withdrawn.
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