The great petrol scam

I HAVE often wondered in amazement about the Nigerian's ability to accommodate pain and suffering without complaint or protest. We really must be very tolerant people, or maybe we are just plain docile or dumb? Millions of Nigerians and transporters alike are being cheated daily at the petrol pumps, and apparently no one is aware of this or even cares.

I have been a motoring enthusiast for four decades, and I take issues concerning motoring safety, running costs, maintenance and motoring regulation seriously. I am therefore alarmed that the fraud perpetuated at the petrol pumps daily has not ignited the anger or concern it deserves.

My personal research over the years has shown unequivocally that virtually all petrol stations in Lagos and most probably all over the country for that matter, deliberately short-sell petrol to customers regularly without fear or risk of sanction.

The following scenario illustrates this ubiquitous fraud. I drive into a petrol filling station with my car that has a dry tank capacity of 80 litres, the fuel gauge reads three-quarter empty, (i.e. quarter tank or 20 litres left) and ask to be filled up. At the end of the fill-up, I got a bill on the meter that my car has received 90 litres of petrol when even the reserve warning light had not come on and the car was driven to the station, not pushed! How do you explain filling an 80-litre tank with 90 litres of petrol when the tank still contains about 20 litres of fuel! This same scenario has unfolded to me with several different cars over the years with unchanging regularity! I have even kept receipts of some of these bogus sales.

When I raise hell after some of these sales, and the attendants realising they are now in an indefensible situation with a knowledgeable customer, often quickly apologise for a "bad meter" and a promise to have it fixed as soon as possible, but I doubt if they ever fix anything. On one particular occasion I made so much fuss that I got some refund back!

The last episode which finally prompted me to write this article occurred just before last Christmas when I was sold 65 litres of petrol into a small car with a dry tank capacity of 50 litres when the fuel gauge was still above quarter tank, Haba! Even if my fuel gauge was faulty there must have been some fuel still in the tank!

The explanation of this obvious capacity mismatch is that filling stations have mastered the devious art of adjusting their meters to dispense less than one litre of petrol for every one litre sold to customers! Who benefits from this "error"? The filling stations of course! The margin of error in favour of the filling stations is usually in the order of 20 to 25 per cent from my experience and calculation over the years.

The dry fuel tank capacity of every vehicle is stated in the owner's manual, and it is of course an accurate measurement dictated and monitored by law in the country of vehicle manufacture, so this cannot be an error. A litre is a universal unit of volume which does not vary from country to country like for example the Imperial gallon compared to the U.S. gallon. So why is the Nigerian litre less than the universal standard? I know of 'African time', maybe even 'Nigerian time', but there is no 'Nigerian litre', except we agree to introduce the 'Nigerian factor' which unfortunately often translates to fraud.

If you want to be charitable, you may wish to suggest that these are just random calibration errors which can occur in any measuring system. Fine, but why doesn't the error ever favour the car owner? Why doesn't a filling station ever oversell to customers? I am yet to find a filling station that is calibrated to deliver more petrol than you paid for. The law of averages dictates that random errors will occur evenly over time and cancel each other out. In any case, any measuring system meant for trade must not have a margin of error in excess of five per cent. By law, all our filling stations as of today should be shut down with immediate effect.

The unearned profit from this illegal and wicked practice runs into millions of naira annually for these petrol stations and their owners. No wonder petrol stations are springing up everywhere and the owners are smiling all the way to the bank! I have calculated that for every tanker load of petrol containing 33,000 litres delivered to a filling station, the average unearned (illegal) profit is about four hundred thousand naira.

Each vehicle that buys over 40 litres of petrol loses about six hundred naira to seven hundred naira! Nigerians are actually now paying about one hundred naira per litre for petrol without knowing it! I am then amused when we protest anytime PPRA adds five naira per litre to the price of petrol, when we ignore the thirty naira per litre 'hidden' premium we are paying regularly to these petrol thieves over and above the statutory profit margin which had already been factored into the official pump price.

Why has this ugly situation persisted for so long? Because most Nigerian vehicle owners are often careless and apathetic towards their own well-being. Most 'educated' Nigerians who own cars cannot tell you the fuel capacity of their cars, so how can they even know when they are being cheated at the pumps? It is this generalised and pervasive apathy towards detailing and observation that characterises most Nigerian motorists, and this often spills over to safety issues like tyre pressures, tyre sizes and tyre speed rating. For example most Nigerian motorists don't even know that tyres have expiry dates, after which you drive with them at your own peril. Most accidents on Nigerian roads are still due to bad tyre choices and wrong pressures.

Is it because fuel is actually too cheap (as has been suggested by some people) in this country that we do not care much about vehicle fuel capacity and fuel consumption of our vehicles? In most advanced countries, everybody can tell you off-the-cuff the fuel capacity and consumption of their cars and trucks. But try to ask the average Yuppie Nigerian or 'Big Man' with their cool 'Jeeps' and other exotic cars, and what do you get? Total shameful ignorance! How then do we even begin to sensitise Nigerians to environmental issues concerning fossil fuel burning, the ozone layer and global warming!

Most Nigerians (even if they do not care or worry about global warming and this ozone stuff), are unfortunately not wealthy enough to be indifferent to petrol price or vehicle fuel consumption and yet they deal with these issues in such a cavalier manner.

The perpetuation of this petrol fraud is of course not the fault of the motorist alone. There is actually a government regulatory body charged with the responsibility of monitoring petrol filling stations to ensure they practice within the law. This is the DPR, (Department of Petroleum Resources), with offices at Kofo Abayomi Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. I am however yet to be convinced the DPR is doing anything to police these erring filling stations, because while they have the power to shut down any errant station, none is being shut in spite of the flagrant robbery going on daily. DPR staff are expected to randomly visit petrol stations armed with fixed measured litre containers with which to measure dispensed fuel, the volume of which must not be outside the agreed margin of error.

Is the DPR not aware of its functions? Has it abandoned these functions? Does it lack the personnel or equipment to do the job? Or are the staff of DPR colluding with the petrol stations and marketers to defraud Nigerians? These are questions that need urgent answers, and I hope someone in the DPR or NNPC or higher in Government can rise to this challenge.

But until the DPR does its job properly, I will advise you my fellow Nigerians to dust your vehicle owner's manual (if you can still find it!) and check its fuel tank capacity. When next you fill your tank with petrol or diesel (yes, diesel pumps are also 'fixed') you will be totally amazed as to how much 'fake' fuel you are paying for. If many more of us raise hell with these filling stations, and threaten to report them to the authorities, maybe they will be frightened enough to change their ways. But, I somehow doubt it. We could certainly use a Ribadu in the DPR. Happy motoring.