Oyo Govt Urges DPR To Sanction Marketers Hoarding PMS
Oyo State government has urged the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to start monitoring petroleum stations in the state and sanction marketers found hoarding Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol.
The state Commissioner for Public Works and Transport, Professor Daud Sangodoyin, made the call while featuring on a radio programme in Ibadan, on Monday.
Ogundoyin said the scarcity of fuel that started on Sunday was an artificial creation, noting that there was no reason for most of the marketers not to sell to the people.
Most fuel stations in Ibadan were not selling PMS to motorists, while those selling experienced long cues which also contributed to traffic gridlock in some parts of the metropolis.
“As government, we are doing all we can to make life easy for the people of Oyo State and this is reflected in the number of infrastructural projects around the state. For some people to be creating artificial scarcity of fuel for pecuniary reasons is wrong and inhuman.
“The Department of Petroleum Resources should, as a matter of urgency, swing into action and arrest the situation.
“They have the work of monitoring cut out for them and this is the moment to bring those marketers sabotaging government by hoarding products to book,” Sangodoyin said.
However, most of the filling stations monitored by NEWSCOVEN.NG along the Apata-Abeokuta Road axis of the state capital were seen opened and selling to motorists at the regular N165,00 pump price per litre.
An attendant at one of the filling stations at the New Garage area of Apata, said the station has been selling at the old rate since over the weekend, noting however that there were panic buying by some customers on Sunday evening.
“I don’t know why motorists and other customers are resorting to panic buying. We noticed the development here at our station on Sunday evening. Many of them were rushing to buy petrol.
“Here at our own filling station, we are not under any instruction yet by our management to increase the pump price. We have been selling at the rate of N165,00 per litre, which is the price we have been selling since that last increment in the pump price,” the young attendant said.
