Yuletide: NSCDC, DPR clampdown on erring filling stations

In a bold move to ensure that the Christmas and New Year celebrations are hitch-free for motorists and other petroleum users, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), alongside the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) Plateau State Command has sealed up several filling stations for offences ranging from under dispensing of petroleum products, faulty pumps, among others.

Speaking during the clampdown operation, Controller DPR Jos Field Office, Jerome Agada, said they were able to tackle the menace of erring filling stations and illegal fuel dealers, popularly known as black marketers in the state through effective collaboration with the security agencies.

He said they have also applied other intelligence and investigatory moves to uncover shoddy deals in the petroleum business value chain in the state, thereby making it easier to monitor the activities of petroleum dealers.

Agada assured the public that the DPR is fully on ground to perform its oversight function over operators to ensure total sanity and warned marketers who dare short-change the public to desist from doing so.

He disclosed that in the Jos depot alone, over 26 million litres of petroleum product is in stock, and revealed that the operations has taken them to 10 filing stations out of which 16 pumps were sealed for under dispensing of the product, cheating the public intentionally by manipulating the pumps. “17 other pumps were also sealed because they are faulty. When they repair those pumps, they will call us to verify the accuracy before we open them,” he said.