The price of premium motor spirit, popularly called petrol, has risen above the approved pump price of N97 per litre to N150 in the Enugu state capital, and its environs.
The our correspondent reports that apart from few major marketers that occasionally sell at the regulated pump price, independent marketers have hiked the price to between N150 and N170 per litre.
The situation is worst at the major marketers’ service stations where the pump attendants were seen idling and discussing the situation.
Several vehicles queued to buy the product at N150 per litre at a private service station on Presidential Road, Enugu yesterday.
This situation has compelled transporters to hike transport fair as from Abakpa to Obiagu is now N100 instead of the initial N50 and New Haven to Old Park that was N50 is now N80.
An attendant at the one the stations, who simply identified herself as Onyekachi, blamed the situation on the scarcity of the product.
She said: “If the product is not scarce as NNPC why is the DPR and PPPRA is yet to force marketers to sell the product at the official price. The product is scarce; because of the scarcity, we are no longer getting regular supplies.”
An independent marketer, who preferred anonymity, said “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 his name mentioned, said on phone that they stopped loading the product at the Enugu depot of the NNPC for more than a decade now.