The price of petrol has risen above the approved pump price of N97 per liter to N150 in the Enugu state capital and its environs, as long queues of vehicles appear in the few filling stations selling the product
Our correspondent reports that the filling stations belonging to independent marketers and black market operators are the ones heavily engaged in the fuel price hike.
Several vehicles queued to buy the product at N150 per litre at a private service station on Presidential Road, Enugu when our reported visited the place.
This situation has compelled transporters to hike transport fair in both the state capital and local routes in the state.
For instance, a trip from Abakpa Nike to Obiagu is now N100 instead of initial N50. From New Haven to Old Park, commuters now pay N100 up from the N50 paid before the fuel price hike.
An attendant at the one the station’s, who simply identified herself as Onyekachi, blamed the situation on the scarcity of the product from the NNPC.
“We are selling according to how we purchase the products. We don’t know what is going on at the NNPC and government, but they know that we are buying the products at marked up costs from their own hands. So, they know they (the DPR and PPRA cannot come and tell us to sell at official price,” the source said.
“The product is scarce; because of the scarcity, we are no longer getting regular supplies,” she said.
An independent marketer who preferred anonymity said that “we are spending more to source the product from Lagos and other places’’.
An official of the Tanker Drivers’ Union, Enugu State branch, who didn’t want name mentioned said on phone that they stopped loading the product at the Enugu depot of NNPC for more than a decade running.
A motorist with God is Good motors, Emeka Okafor, also expressed worry over the situation. “I am disturbed by this situation because I thought that the Federal Government had solved the problem of fuel scarcity permanently in the country,” he said.
