As the Federal Government fails to firm up its position on its proposed deregulation of the petroleum downstream sector, the price of petrol now sells for =N=150/litre on the streets of Abuja.
The confusion over government’s position caused petroleum marketers to suspend operations, keeping their petrol stations shut despite long queues of vehicles waiting for hours for the product. Desperate motorist have resorted to sourcing supply from the black market and are forced to cough out double the price. The official price remains =N=65/litre
In a related development, inter city transport fares have gone up by as much as 50 per cent in the city.
Taxi drivers, have hiked their fares indiscriminately, they complain that they spent longer time in queue for fuel and hopes to make up for the lost hours by increasing fares.
However, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Directorate of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the regulatory body, still maintains that there is no cause for the scarcity being experienced nationwide.
Threats by the DPR to shut down fuel outlets that fail to sell forced some stations to intermittently dispense the product at the official price, but the long queues around city still persists.
A Director of the DPR, Dr. Billy Agha told journalists that the DPR had set up a task force to ensure that products were distributed to dispensing points and sold to the public at appropriate price and quantity.
Agha, who led the monitoring team, maintained that the department embarked on the exercise to ensure compliance by marketers, adding that the department would not hesitate to impose sanctions on erring marketers.
“We have formed a task force on 24 hours surveillance of filling stations in the country. Anybody found hoarding fuel would face the wrath of the law,” the DPR boss submitted.