The Minister of
Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, has directed regulatory agencies in the ministry to sanction any marketer found hoarding, diverting or selling petroleum products above the regulated prices.
This was contained in a statement by the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Department of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The agencies, it said, were Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA).
The statement stated that the corporation has enough stock of the product to keep the country wet for two months, and put the current stock of premium motor spirit (PMs, or Petrol) in its depots across the country at 1.9 billion litres.
It also appealed to petroleum tanker drivers, who stopped hauling fuel from depots in the coastal states to the northern parts of the country to return.
It explained that some drivers had expressed anxiety of being caught in unfounded fears of post-election violence. But the statement revealed that the corporation was working closely with security agencies to provide maximum security.
According to the statement, marketers were capitalising on the election situation to hoard and divert petroleum products, thereby subjecting Nigerians to avoidable hardship.
It particularly urged members of the public to discountenance rumours or insinuations of petrol scarcity and to shun panic buying and stock-piling of petrol especially within the election period in the country.
It stated that all issues relating to the importation of fuel by marketers had been resolved and that Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) had released a huge volume of petrol into the market.
The Tide reports that some marketers operating in Port Harcourt took undue advantage of the anxiety created by the election to indulge in hoarding, selling above regulated prices and pump manipulation.
Motorists in the city had also blamed DPR for not doing enough to monitor and check the excesses of the marketers.