Oil marketers under the aegis of the Petroleum Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN), have set up and deployed a task force to check and sanction filling stations selling Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, at high prices.
Gatekeepers News reports that the development follows reports that some filling stations were dispensing petrol above N300/litre, higher than the price approved by the Federal Government.
The President, PETROAN, Billy Gillis-Harry, while racting to the high cost of petrol, particularly outside Abuja and Lagos, on Wednesday, said the association had deployed a task force to check the menace.
“We frown at anybody selling so much above the price of what should be adequate. If they accessed the product at a high rate, then we would not sanction them.
“But if they accessed the product from NNPCL and sell it at exorbitant rates of N220, N250, we will sanction you. It is getting very punitive. So our task force now goes around and when we get them we invoke the powers of the NMDPRA (Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority) over them,” President of the association told Punch News.
Gilly-Harry added, “By the time they (defaulters) go and settle all their fines, they will know that it is not worth selling at exorbitant prices with the intention to profiteer.
“That is what we are doing right now and I think Nigerians should be appreciative of PETROAN as regards this development.”
He explained that marketers who accessed the product from NNPCL should not dispense the commodity above N200/litre, but was quick to state that it was currently tough to get PMS from NNPCL.
“If you bought from NNPCL, you must be duty-bound to sell at a maximum of N200/litre, because NNPC sells at a maximum of N194/litre. So for some independent marketers, it is just N6 more, but the truth is that we are not seeing the product.
“Some of us who paid for products since October, have not been able to load till now, and the cost around this is increasing every day. So by the time they load it, you can imagine the cost burden on the marketers,” he stated.
The oil marketers’ President, however, assured Nigerians that PETROAN would work hard to curtail the activities of dealers who try to profiteer by dispensing petrol at exorbitant rates.
Meanwhile, oil marketers have threatened to name and expose private depot owners refusing to comply with the Federal Government’s directive to sell products at a regulated price of N172 per litre.
The National Controller Operation, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Mike Osatuyi said defaulters would be exposed after the general elections.
According to him, apart from Emadeb who has been selling to IPMAN members at N172/litre, other depot owners currently sell above N200/litre.
