The Ibadan Field Office of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) on Monday threatened to sanction oil marketers engaging in fuel hoarding in order to ensure availability of products.
Giving this hint while interacting with journalists on fuel situation in the state, the Controller Operations, DPR Ibadan Field Office, Mr Oluyemi Olaonipekun, promised that the Department would continue to intensify its surveillance on illegal petroleum activities with a view sanctioning erring marketers.
He recalled that the Department sealed off five petrol stations suspected to be hoarding petrol recently, saying that there is no reason for fuel scarcity in any part of the state.
The controller said: “We noticed that there ought not be scarcity, especially with quantity of products being pushed out, so we intensified surveillance.
“We suspected that the stations were hoarding products, they refused to sell, and refused our efforts to dip into their tanks
“Apart from ensuring that hoarding does not work, we shall ensure that sharp practices such as pump adjustment is stamped out”, Olaonipekun added.
Fuel queues resurfaced in major cities in the country, including Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, Lagos, following speculations by marketers that the Federal Government would heed the call of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the removal of fuel subsidy as a fiscal policy option.
However, the government had doused the anxieties over the fuel subsidy issue by saying that it is not ready to remove it, at least, for now.
