The Weights and Measures Department of the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment had sealed two dispensing pumps of NNPC filling station, Gwarimpa and OANDO filling station at Ahmadu Bello way for under dispensing petroleum products to customers in Abuja
This was discovered during the inspection of filing stations, gas retail outlet and Park and Shop store by the Weights and Measures department led by Head of Monitoring and Surveillance unit, Engr. Mohammed Sidi in Abuja.
During the inspection at the NNPC Gwarimpa, it was discovered that the dispensing pumps at the station short-changed by 0.380 litres for every 20 litres of pms (19.62litres as 20 litres) which amount to extra N36.86 gain from 20 litres.
At the OANDO filling station at Ahmadu Bello way was dispensing 19.52 litres as 20 litres (480ml from 20 litres) which amount to extra N46.56 on 20 litres. The Gas weighing equipment used by the retail outlet at the station was confiscated by the team for not possessing certificate of verification and illegitimate use of unverified measuring equipment for trading which might lead to unfair trade.
Other filling stations inspected by the team which their dispensing pumps were within tolerance level were OANDO filling station Gwarimpa and Conoil Area one. However, the Conoil in area one was told to repair the dispensing pump no. 23 3G2207 (Wayne) which did not indicate price and quantity dispensed for avoidance of fraudulent practice.
The team also inspected pre-parked goods at Park “n” Shop and requested the manager Mr. Mathew Agabi to ensure that weight was indicated in their bakery products and imported goods to reflect the exclusive metric measure indicator of weights and measures in conformity with the weights and measures act.
Mr. Sidi reiterated that this was part of their routine activities in the market and retail outlets to check their weighing and measuring instrument used for trading.
In his words, ”we come to check the accuracy of the equipment, the legality of those equipment and the pre-parked goods being sold in the market which might be short measured, short weighed and used for trading”
“For those defaulters whose dispensing pumps were not within the tolerable error, we have invited them to come to our office, we are going to investigate why they are doing it and we are going to make sure that they revert to normal range and where we found that a marketer had defaulted 2 or 3 times we will take him to court for prosecution”.
“We have just succeeded in winning one of the cases last week as announced by the Federal High Court in Lokoja, others are in progress and we are definitely going to prosecute a good number of them”.
On agencies overlapping functions, Engr. Sidi stated that there is only one agency recognised by law to handle, regulate, set, inspect certify all weighing and measuring equipment in Nigeria adding that Weights and Measures department is not just a national but has link with the international weights and measures organization in Paris.
The Head of Monitoring and Surveillance team said that it is the desire of Federal government to protect consumers of petroleum products from unscrupulous retailers who intends to take advantage of the deregulated downstream industry to short change Nigerian consumers through periodic checks on all retailers of petroleum products adding that the inspection was simultaneously being carried out in all the state of the federation.
Bolaji Kazeem
For: Director (Press)
