DPR warns Gombe retail outlets against non compliance of regulations
Chima Azubuike, Gombe
Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), has warned retail outlets against flouting regulatory standards.
Briefing Journalists on Saturday, after assessing the situation across the metropolis, Yerima Kollomi, operations controller, Gombe field office, said the essence of the inspection is to ensure product availability, and quality delivery to the public.
Kollomi who expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the surveillance embarked by his men, adding that the defaulting outlets had been issued with compliance notification.
He said, “All the stations we have gone you can see that we have stock in all the stations, all the pumps checked are performing fairly okay apart from minor difference of under delivery but we have asked them to adjust to what it should be, we have issued them compliance notification. On the general outing, we are in good state.
“All the pumps that have been identified, we had instructed them not to sell from those pumps. If they tamper with it we will know; they have to correct it then we check from where we stopped and if there is any movement we will know.
“We are not been soft or lenient we feel that you don’t use sledge hammer to kill fly, it becomes counter productive what we observed is minor differentials that they can easily correct,if we seal the stations the public will still suffer. The whole exercise is for the public to get quality service in safety.
“We have standard operating procedure in the oil and gas. For the safety requirement for all the outlets are been observed with the change in weather condition. The standard operating procedure must be adhered to and we are monitoring it.”
While lamenting on the inferno that razed two stations in the state few months ago, Kollomi said it was unfortunate, attributing it to carelessness and unprofessional conducts.
“It was careless practice, they didn’t adhere to the standard operating procedure; the fortunate aspect of the incident was that no lives were lost. Some of the personnel at the outlets are not trained. We are advising all the stakeholders to be security conscious and to be serious about training personnel to do the right thing in order to prevent avoidable accident,” Kollomi said.
He disclosed that the price differential of 163-165, is within range, stressing that it would have been more but for the help of government.
Kollomi added, “If you look at it we are gradually moving out of regulatory price, just that government is doing it best to ensure citizens get the best. If left for the market forces it would have been higher but with the price we got within Gombe we are very much satisfied.”
