More than 90 percent of filling stations operating in Nasarawa State have fully complied with the directive by the Federal Government to sell a litre of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) at N125.
Alhaji Abdulrahaman Muhammad-Bima, Comptroller of Operations, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Lafia, disclosed this in Lafia on Monday.
Muhammad-Bima said that the department had dispatched a technical team that monitored fully the level of compliance by filling stations in the state.
He warned that those filling stations that had failed to comply with the directive would be sealed.
The comptroller, however, commended NNPC, A.A Rano and A.Y Shafa filling stations for being among the first to comply as soon as the reduction in pump price of PMS was announced by the federal government.
He appealed to the public to report to its office, any filling station that sold petroleum products above the federal government-approved pump price of N125.
He said: “appropriate action will be taken against such filling stations that violate government approved price.
“Already, the department has sealed 20 filling stations from January to date for various offences in the state.’’
The comptroller said that the filling stations that were sealed were for offences, which included under-delivery, diversion of product, lack of safety precautions and other related offences.
He said that the affected filling stations, which included major and independent petroleum marketers, cut across the 13 local government areas of the state.
According to him, the affected stations were fined and were unsealed after payment of their fines to the federal government.
“The erring filling stations were punished for breaching the laws guiding their operations, for DPR will not compromise the set standard for filling stations’ operations.
“I also wish to admonish motorists to steer clear of illegal filling stations, and to always patronise those selling unadulterated petroleum products.
“If the filling stations have fuel, why do you have to patronise black markets, which may have been adulterated” Muhammad-Bima queried.
He explained that there was always fuel at filling stations, so there was no need to patronise black markets, considering that the products from legal filling stations were cheaper and more reliable.
