SCORES of motorists in the queue at filling stations in Port Harcourt have lamented the sudden scarcity of premium motor spirit also known as petrol in the state.
Some of the motorists, who told Southern City News that they had been buying the product without spending much time at filling stations, wondered why the situation suddenly changed.
The scarcity, which was noticed on Monday, had made it impossible for some fuel dealers to buy the products from the depot and sell to motorists and other users of PMS.
One of the motorists, a taxi driver, told Southern City News that he was in the queue at the Skymint Energy Limited filling station for more than two hours before he could purchase fuel.
The taxi driver, who identified himself as Ovhunda, said he came drove a long distance to buy fuel at Ada George, adding that most filling stations did not open.
He disclosed that with the increase in the price of PMS as a result of the scarcity, he would increase the fare.
“You can see that a litre of fuel that was sold for N86.50 official price has suddenly gone up to N120 per litre. It means that I will have to increase the fare; my passengers will pay more,” Ovhunda said.
Another motorist, a private car owner said she had been in the queue at the Skymint Energy filling station for the past two hours and unable to get fuel.
She decried a situation where the fuel attendants would continue to sell the PMS to those with jerrycans but refused to dispense to car owners.
“The fuel attendants are concentrating on those that came with jerrycans without considering us. Ordinarily, it should be one rubber container and one car.
“But what they are doing here is that they sell to people with jerrycans because of the extra money they (fuel attendants) collect from them,” the angry motorist fumed.
When asked why he was selling fuel above the N86.50 official price, the petroleum dealer told Southern City News that the depot sold a litre of PMS to his company at N96 as against the government-approved price of N77.
“We are buying N96 per litre at the depot and they want us to sell N86.50 a litre. It is not possible. As of today, the price of a litre of fuel at the depot has risen to N150,” the fuel dealer, who did not mention his name, said.
Our correspondent observed that many filling stations in Port Harcourt had remained closed since Monday when the scarcity began while operators of black market had flooded the entire metropolis.
The black marketers are currently selling the petrol for N150 per litre to any willing buyer. Punch.
