Petrol queues disappear in Abuja, most cities – Baru

By Etuka Sunday

The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru, has said that fuel queues noticeable in parts of the Country days back have all disappeared.
Dr. Baru who declared at the weekend in Abuja during a tour of some fuel stations in the Federal Capital City (FCT), said NNPC would work round the clock to sustain a regime of zero petrol queues across the country.
The NNPC helmsman stated that the Country had over thirty days sufficiency of the product.
He disclosed that NNPC had increased its daily truck-outs of PMS from 1,733 to 2000 per day to address the scarcity of the products in the hinterlands, saying the Corporation was poised to flood the market with petrol to return the situation to normalcy across the Country.
“We have a Presidential directive that if we catch any marketer hoarding products or selling above the approved pump price we should dispense the products to the public free and that directive still holds. Therefore, those marketers that are still hoarding products in their stations should be aware that if they are caught by the regulatory agency of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and, of course, the law enforcement agencies, they stand the chance of losing their products to the public,” Dr. Baru cautioned.
He said regulatory and security agencies had cast their dragnets, ready to enforce the law, stressing that the good news was that some of the major and independent marketers with retail stations across the nation had sufficient petrol to sell to motorists who need of the product.
NNPC spokesman, Ndu Ughamadu in a statement quoted Dr. Baru to have urged filling station owners with petrol to be patriotic by selling from all their pumps to further reduce the build-up of queues.
He said there were no plans to increase the pump price of petrol, affirming that NNPC had succeeded in returning the country to zero petrol queues as a New Year gift to the motorists.
A cross section of motorists commended the NNPC for clearing the petrol queues and enjoined them to sustain the efforts at ensuring availability of the product across the country.