LAGOS MARCH 3RD (URHOBOTODAY)-Fuel scarcity has spread to the cities of Warri, Asaba, Ughelli,Sapele, Agbor and other cities in Delta State. This has made life unbearable for motorists and residents as the scarcity has led to increase in transportation fare and other consumable goods.
For instance, the pump price of petrol usually sold for N97 per liter has increased to between N120 to N150 in petrol stations. Despite the increase, the product is not available in the day time and where it is available, the petrol attendants asked for ‘extra tips’ described as ‘marching’ before attending to motorist.
Despite the unauthorized increased in pump price petroleum products are not available in most petrol stations. Those that have products sell in the night at exorbitant and variable prices. Urhobotoday gathered that this is done in order to avoid arrest by official of Petroleum Product Monitoring Task Force set up to monitor the sale of petroleum products. Besides, petroleum product dealers load these products in drums for onward delivery to black market sellers who sold at N200 per litre.
Consequently, petroleum product dealers and their attendants are smiling to the bank daily, while motorists continue to lament hard time as fuel scarcity continue to bite harder in the state unabated.
The irony of the situation is that NNPC fuel stations which were expected to rescue consumer in this period of need have totally refused to sell to motorists. The attendants only sell fuel to selected motorists probably known faces at exorbitant prices.
Urhobotoday investigation also revealed that the NNPC stations are diverting the products to black market dealers where they were expected to make triple turn over in their sales. Most of the shady deal are executed in the night.
The scarcity of petroleum product has crippled the activities of small scale businesses in the state as they cannot afford the high cost of petroleum product.