The Operations Controller at the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) in Kwara State, Mr Amos Jokodola, has warned petroleum marketers to desist from hoarding petroleum products at weekends.
Jokodola gave the warning on Monday in Ilorin.
He condemned the activities of some petrol dealers who hoard products to sell exorbitantly above the recommended pump price at weekends.
Some petrol dealers in the North-Central state were in the habit of hoarding petroleum products to create artificial scarcity and higher pump prices at weekends.
Jokotola alleged that some dealers, who were selling petrol last Thursday at between N87 and N95 per litre, suddenly jerked up the price on Friday evening and sold petrol at N110 per litre.
He said that some filling stations closed shops last Saturday in spite of the number of tankers loaded with fuel that came to Ilorin metropolis from the NNPC depot in Oke Oyi on Friday.,
The controller condemned some petrol dealers for breaching regulations of NNPC at evenings and weekends.
Jokodola also condemned occasional non-availability of the products at the NNPC Depot in Oke Oyi due to the activities of vandals on the pipeline between Ibadan and Ilorin.
He said that the independent marketers supplying Kwara and its environs had had to resort to bridging petroleum products from other depots located across the country irrespective of the distance.
Jokotola said some dealers had capitalised on the disruption in regular supply of fuel from Ibadan to Ilorin caused by vandalized pipelines to hike prices.
He said that some of the petroleum marketers had devised ways of beating DPR officials each time they engaged the illegal fuel hike.
According to him, each time his men were on inspection to check the nefarious activities, the marketers would hurriedly alert their colleagues through mobile phone calls and bulk SMS about the DPR operations.
Jokotola said that experience had shown that the alerted dealers would hurriedly locked up their premises leaving only the security guards who would claim he had no keys to open the premises for inspection.
The DPR boss said the marketers, particularly those outside the state capital, would sometimes prevent the inspectors from carrying out their duties with threats to their lives.
Jokodola commended the State Police Command for its assistance of armed mobile policemen on such life threatening occasions.
