IPMAN sets committee to check petroleum products hoarding

By Tukur Muntari

The Kano State Chapter of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has set up a committee to ensure none of its members engage in hoarding of petroleum products.

IPMAN Chairman in the state, Alhaji Bashir Dan-Malam, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kano on Friday.

He said the committee was expected to go round all filling stations owned by its members in the state with a view to ensuring that the products were sold at the approved government price.

He said any of its members found hoarding the products in order to maximize profit would be sanctioned.

He, however, called on the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other stakeholders to intervene in the supply of petroleum products to prevent their scarcity.

According to him, the private depots at Calabar, Port Harcourt and Lagos had increased their price from N133.28 per litre to between N188 and N140 per litre.

“By the time we transport the product to Kano, each litre will cost us N153 and the Federal Government said we should sell it at N145 per litre.

“This is the situation we are in now. So there is urgent need for the Federal Government to do something before the situation degenerates,’’ he said.

He commended the Federal Government for its prompt intervention in the supply of kerosene and diesel, saying the prices of the two commodities had come down.

“Since Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Warri refineries resumed production of the two products, their prices have reduced,” he said.

NAN reports that Kano residents woke up on Friday and saw most of the filling stations in the city and environs closed.

The marketers were said to have closed their filling stations in anticipation of a fuel price increase, a report the Federal Government has since denied.

NAN observed long queues of vehicles at the few filling stations that were selling the products

Irked by the sudden closure of the filling stations, a cleric, Imam Abdulwahab Gadon-Kaya, called on fuel marketers to be God fearing in their activities.

Gadon-Kaya, who, made the call shortly after the Friday congregational prayer at Al-Furqan Mosque in Kano, said that the action of the marketers could only aggravate the current sufferings of the common man.

He wondered why the marketers should close the filling stations when the government had not announced any increase in the price of petroleum products.

“It is our hope that they (marketers) will sympathise with the common man in this economic recession so as to earn the blessings of God,’’ he said.

NAN