Olusegun Aganga: Nigeria’s Minister of Trade and Investment.

The Weighing and Measuring Department of the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment has sealed 14 pumps at six petrol filling stations in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, for alleged under dispensing of fuel to motorists.

The enforcement team, led by the department’s Acting Director, Mr Mohammed Sidi-Sada, sealed the stations for allegedly manipulating their meters and cheating on motorists.

He said the ministry was out to ensure strict compliance with the Federal Government’s directive on reduction of pump price of fuel from N97 to N87 per litre.

He said although the stations visited complied with the directive by adjusting their meters to N87 per litre, they were still defrauding the motorists by under dispensing of fuel to them.

The stations sealed included Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), ConOil Area1, Fortre Oil, AY Ashafa both in Gudu District, Oando Jama’are close, and Advanced Link both in Area 11.

According to him, NNPC station in Gudu has one of its pumps sealed for short changing motorists with 3.1 litres on 20 litres, while four pumps were sealed at Fortre Oil for cheating customers with 6.1litres on 20 litres.

He said three pumps were sealed in Oando for under dispensing to customers with between two to three litres on 20 litres.

He said AY Ashafa had four of its pumps sealed for allegedly cheating motorists with 1.1 litres on 20 litres.

He said Advanced Link’s two pumps were sealed for reducing 1.2 litres on 20 litres sold to motorists.
According to him, Conoil has two of its pumps sealed for under dispensing to motorists with 30ml on 20 litres sold.

However, the Station Manager, Mr Emmanuel Akor, at Conoil, protested what he described as unjust sealing of the pumps of the station.

Akor said the station had not gone far beyond the limit of its allowances, which he said stipulated plus or minus 20 ml on 20 litres.

He said the irregularity in the pumps was due to technical error because some of the pumps were even over dispensing to motorists.

Speaking with the newsmen at the end of the exercise, the team leader said government would not fold its arms and watch the operators cheating on the innocent motorists.

Sidi-Sada said the department would continue to carry out periodic surveillance on the filling stations and the ministry would not relent until there was total compliance with the directive.

He urged motorists to report any filling station that either under-dispensed or sell sub standard products or failed to cooperate with them to Weight and Measures or other agencies.

“In fact, they should stop buying from filing stations which they have discovered to be shortchanging them,” he said.