The fuel dispensing fraud at filling stations

NOT a few Nigerians, especially motorists and vehicle owners, were delighted when the price of fuel which had continually spiked was reduced by two of the major suppliers of the product, namely the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited ( NNPCL) and Dangote Refinery Ltd, towards the end of the outgone year. While NNPCL announced price reduction from N1060 to N965 across all its retail stations nationwide, Dangote Refinery reduced its price per litre to N899 and the latter directed buyers to access the product through the MRS filling stations. Though these price reductions are marginal, they would still have amounted to a significant relief to many Nigerians who frequently use petrol, especially commercial vehicle owners and drivers, if the right quality and quantity of fuel had been dispensed to buyers post-price reduction. However, the preponderance of complaints by motorists is that poor-quality fuel which is used up in a very short time is being sold to them and that in some cases, the fuel pumps are doctored to shortchange buyers in terms of the quantity dispensed.

The implication is that the price reduction which ought to be a thing of joy has become a channel for unscrupulous operatives of filling stations to shortchange, cheat, and fleece Nigerians of their hard-earned money. The testimonies of some motorists, especially commercial drivers in Abuja, on this issue show the level of decadence that has crept into the downstream sector of the oil industry in the country. Many have even  shown a preference for patronizing certain private filling stations that have not adjusted their price to reflect the reduction by Dangote and NNPCL but whose pump can be trusted and which are dispensing high quality fuel that lasts longer.

The question is, how can citizens be robbed in this brazen manner in a clime where there is supposed to be a government? The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that the full impact of the shenanigans by the filling stations is being felt in a critical month of the year when many had expended the little money they had on year-end and New Year festivities even as other compelling expenses like children’s school fees stare them in the face. There is hardly any other way to construe the sordid state of affairs other than to see it from the viewpoint of leadership failure. Tampering with or doctoring the fuel pump to dispense less than the requisite quantity of fuel to buyers at the normal price, though detestable, is not a novel challenge in the land. However, now that fuel subsidy has been removed and the pump price increased significantly, such corrupt and fraudulent act has become patently intolerable. It is indeed difficult to believe that some Nigerians could engage in acts that can compound their compatriots’ woes in this era of economic hardship by cheating or shortchanging them. If the relevant agencies of government had been up and doing and clamped down heavily on those who tamper with their fuel pumps to swindle unsuspecting fuel buyers by their fraudulent schemes, the cheats would not have had the temerity to continue in the deplorable act. Put more pointedly, the cheating would have stopped if the offending stations had been shut down regularly without any official compromise or punishment that amounts to a slap on the wrist being meted to offenders.

Unfortunately, the consequences of the illegal and morally reprehensible acts of filling station attendants short-changing fuel buyers, allegedly with the authorisation of the managers, transcend losses or costs in monetary terms. There have been instances when travellers got stranded in the middle of nowhere after they had been cheated at the filling stations. Their vehicles stopped mid way, exposing them to dangers that could have been avoided. This happens quite often and it is unfortunate. For instance, a motorist who knows from experience that 30 litres of fuel will take him to his destination, pays for the same litres of fuel but has 20 litres dispensed into his tank is bound to be disappointed on the way. It is worrying that lack of effectiveness and tardiness in government machinery has often been the basis of the exploitation of the masses of people in Nigeria. Sadly, the government has not stymied this tendency even in a period of economic hardship when many Nigerians are understandably agitated. And perhaps more worrisome also is the ease with which individual, groups and organisations hide under governmental ineffectiveness to wreak havoc and impose exploitative acts and costs on the people without regard to decency and patriotism.

The reduction in the pump price of PMS is a most welcome development. And that, in a sense, may suggest that the implementation of the neo-liberal economic policies of the President Bola Tinubu’s administration in downstream sector of the oil industry may have begun to yield the much trumpeted positive outcome, albeit marginally, by way of reduction in the pump price of fuel arising from competition. However, the fact that vehicle owners and other motorists are being effectively prevented from enjoying the marginal drop in the fuel pump price, in the true sense of it, eloquently shows that strict adherence to textbook and Breton Woods economic policy prescriptions may not deliver the goods to the masses if it is not complemented with good governance by way of painstaking official monitoring of economic actors and enforcement of regulations.

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