19th September, 2011
The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) is to impose ‘heavy’ sanctions on any oil marketer found to be aiding and abetting smuggling of petroleum products outside the country.
The measure is announced in the quarterly journal of Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
The Public Relations Officer of the DPR in the North-West region, Alhaji Mohammed Bulama said in the statement that the agency was partnering with security agencies to stop the activities of unpatriotic marketers.
“With the availability of the products in the country now, unscrupulous marketers are indulging in smuggling the products to neighbouring countries in order to make more profits thereby creating artificial scarcity at home,†he said.
He said the DPR had been working hard to ensure petrol tankers did not divert their product to neighbouring countries as such constitutes a big economic sabotage.
Bulama appealed to members of the public to report any marketer suspected of smuggling the product to security agencies for prompt action.
He restated the agency’s commitment to ensuring efficient service delivery in the down stream sector of the industry, adding that the DPR would continue to monitor and seal off any filling station selling the product above the Federal Government’s approved N65 per litre.