Ebonyi State Government has sealed three filling in stations within the Abakaliki metropolis in the State. The petrol stations were sealed following their alleged involvement in sharp practices, meter adjustments among other related offenses. The Special Assistant to Governor Francis Nwifuru on Petroleum, Mr. Nwafor Nnaemeka who stated this while speaking with newsmen in Abakaliki, threatened to seal more Petrol stations, in order to bring sanity to the Petroleum sector in the State. According to him, the State Government will continue to seal any fuel stations that fails to live up to its mandate of meeting up with the demands of the masses He further warned petroleum dealers and Marketers in the 13 Local Government Areas of the State to shun all forms of fraud, as regarding fuel supply and distribution in the State.
According to him: “Fuel pump price hike is a global menace, so far this country is concerned. The sudden increase of the pump price both from the depot to fuel station owners, due to unavailability of products and as it stands now, Ebonyi state is not an exception. It’s almost everywhere in the country and all states are experiencing it. “We have been working tirelessly to make sure that fuel stations are not under dispensing. We got information that due to the unavailability of the product, people are using the opportunity to defraud the masses. That’s why we deployed a task force to go to all the fuel stations in the state to make sure that they monitor the activities of fuel stations closely. So far, we have sealed three fuel stations; Edde Mass, R&C and Dozi oil & gas fuel stations due to under-dispensing. “We are not leaving any stone unturned and the procession continues and after the urban areas, we will relocate to the rural areas and make sure that the masses get value of what they paid for.
He further debunked the allegations making the round in the state that fake task force agents have flooded fuel stations and are busy extorting money from dealers. “Anybody who is saying that government is not checkmating the activities of the fuel station owners is not saying the truth, that’s what resulted in the sealing of the 3 fuel stations, and they will not go scotfree, and probably we are going to use them as an example, because it is not good to defraud the masses. They are going to face the full wrath of the law. Also, it is not true that fake taskforce agents are flooding fuel stations in the state. I have taskforce agents that was approved by Governor Francis Nwifuru, to work under my department to checkmate the sharp practices that are going on in most of the fuel stations in the state, ranging from adulteration, meter adjustments and other unholy activities, thereby making the masses not to get the value of what they paid for. For now, there is nothing like fake taskforce agents in the state as far as petroleum is concerned, the taskforce agents we have now are legally approved by the Governor and they are making moves of detecting those faults from the fuel stations” he stated.
