Task force directs fuel stations to sell product at N 86.5

Worried by the persistent fuel scarcity in Umuahia, the Abia State capital and its environs, the state’s Task Force on Distribution and Monitoring of Petroleum Products (TD¬MPP) has directed filling stations within the metropolis to sell their products at the official pump price of N86.5 per litre or risk sanctions.
Motorists and other buyers of fuel in the state capital have been subjected to untold hardship in the last one week following the refusal of most operators of fuel stations to sell the product at the official pump price.
While most of the filling stations were closed to customers under the pretext that they had ran out of the product, others that opened for business sold the product between N110 and N130 per litre.
The AUTHORITY on Saturday observed that while the scarcity per-sisted in Umuahia and its environs, the situation was different in Aba, the industrial hub of the state and the neighbouring Imo and Enugu states where the product was not only available but also sold at the of-ficial pump price of N86.5.
Irked by what the TD¬MPP termed, ‘the action of the greedy marketers’, the task force stormed some of the filling stations where they compelled the operators that still had product to sell at the official price.
Team leaders of the task force in charge of Abia Central A and B, Comrade Ken Njoku, and Eddy Ezigbo, who spoke with The AUTHORITY on Saturday yesterday, during the operation expressed regrets that many marketers decided to make life difficult for the people by creating artificial scarcity through hoarding of the product.
The team leaders disclosed that there was some problems between tanker drivers and men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps which, they said, gave rise to the scarcity of the product early last week, but noted that it had since been resolved.
According to them, some capitalists among the marketers cashed in on the situation to create artificial scarcity in order to fleece consumers.
The officials alleged that many filling stations in the state capital under-dispense the product, having fraudulently adjusted their meters in order to make more profit.
They warned perpetrators of such sharp practices including hoarding of products to create artificial scarcity to desist saying that it amounted to economic sabotage which has a penalty of N1 million.
The task force leaders who said they had issued letters of invitation to a number of the defaulting filling stations to report at their office at Protocol Unit, Government House to explain their actions, also alleged that the management of some of the petrol stations attempted to bribe them.