The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has warned residents of Gusau in Zamfara against panic buying and hawking of Petroleum product.
Malam Ango Haruna, The Controller in charge of Gusau DPR field office, gave the warning on Friday in Gusau when he led the surveillance team of the department to inspect some filling stations in the state.
He said that the Department had observed with dismay that some of the residents , including commercial motorcycles riders, connived with the black marketers to buy the commodity from filling stations and resold to desperate buyers.
“We observe that some members of the public involve in panic buying of the commodity.We noticed that filling stations owners were also conniving with such people, which is against the rule and regulations of the DPR.
“That is why many filling stations in Gusau metropolis today were filled up with the jerricans which led to long queue in most of the filling stations in the state capital”, he said
He also warned the filling stations owners to avoid such as they are against the rules and regulations of the DPR.
He said the Department which is charged with the responsibility of ensure effective distribution and sales of fuel would not fold its arms and allow unpatriotic elements to hold other residents to ransom.
He noted that such acts apart from its implications in causing fuel scarcity it may also cause danger in our houses, “we should stop storing petrol in our house in order to avoid fire out break”.
He said even though most of the filling stations in the state had now complied with the order by selling the product at government approved price of ₦145 per litre ‘but the major problem we are facing is hawking and panic buying’.
“Since government had supplied enough commodity to the marketers we will not relent in our efforts to enforce compliance”, he explained.
Newsmen report that the DPR had last week sanctioned 10 filling stations in the state for selling fuel above official pump price of ₦145 per litre.