Motorists Blame Marketers As Fuel Scarcity Hits Taraba

Motorists have attributed the sudden return of long queues at filling stations across Taraba State to hoarding.

 

The motorists, who on separate occasions expressed their dismay over the long queues, accused marketers of hoarding the product thereby making life cumbersome for the people of the State.

It was observed that motorists are struggling to purchase the product from the few available stations that are dispensing above the Federal Government approved pump price.

 

Few of the filing stations that are not willing to join other marketers in hoarding the products have catapulted their pump price to the peak.

As of the time of filing this report, a liter of the product sells between N270.00 to N300.00.

 

Some motorists who bared their minds to our correspondent, felt sad that the agency assigned with the responsibility of checking the marketers is not willing to discharge its responsibilities.

Adam Sani, a commercial driver, who heaped blame on the marketers, said “we are very much aware that all these filing stations have petrol in stocks, but they are not willing to sell them because they are envisaging an increase of price from the Federal Government.”

 

Describing the marketers as “a group of people who do not have the fear of God” he said “at least, they should have gone ahead and sold their products, pending when there is an increase.”

On a visit to the office of the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), staff of the department, who agreed to speak with our correspondents on the condition of anonymity, said “since DPR has been scrapped for a new agency, we are yet to know where we belong.

 

“Going about regulating the activities of marketers now, is not something for us to discuss because we are still waiting to see how they will structure the new agency. As we speak, we don’t even know whether we are going to remain with the new agency or they will absorb us somewhere else. ”