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As kerosene scarcity persists, some marketers are reportedly making brisk business with the product and smiling to the bank in the process.
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Findings by our correspondent reveal that one of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation mega filling stations in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, sells kerosene at N100 per litre as against the official price of N50 per litre.
Leadership Weekend gathered that the station, which is located on Murtala Mohammed Highway, has shunned entreaties by members of the state-owned Task Force on Petroleum and the state House of Assembly Committee on Petroleum to reduce the price of the product. ?
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Investigations revealed that apart from hiking the price, the station sells at odd hours to panicky buyers in cans to escape the wrath of security agents.
?Members of the state task force on petroleum products distribution and those of the Cross River State House of Assembly Committee on petroleum and solid minerals, who visited the station yesterday, were shocked over the findings.
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They were said to have tried in vain to compel the marketer to sell the product at the approved rate but he called their bluff, saying that the members could not discipline him and his workers.?
?Many of the buyers, who had queued for days to buy the product at official rate, were disappointed that the management of the station ignored their pleas to reverse the price.
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Although the government officials went away, they threatened to take disciplinary action against the station.?
Contacted, the management of the station ordered our correspondent to leave the station.