Uche Usim, Abuja
The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) has threatened to sanction marketers of petroleum products who fail to display the prices of products in their retail outlets at all times.
Speaking while leading a monitoring team to some retail outlets in Abuja yesterday, Spokesman of the Agency, Apollo Kimchi, explained that the directive became necessary to prevent sharp practices by petroleum marketers in the country.
According to him, the monitoring exercise was an avenue for PPPRA to gauge the market response to supply dynamics with a view to effecting policies that will improve supply efficiency, stressing that the exercise affords the PPPRA the opportunity to ascertain first-hand the activities at the end of the value chain in the petroleum downstream sub-sector.
He also disclosed that the exercise revealed that price competition amongst marketers was intensifying with some selling at N143 per litre, while others sold for N145 per litre. He explained that the agency was focused on ensuring that the competition does not lead to under-dispensing where marketers will hide under the guise of low price to under-dispense products to unsuspecting customers.
The PPPRA appealed to all stakeholders to ensure they operate within the law and stipulated guidelines in order to avoid sanctions.