Are Fuel Providers Gouging Consumers?

At midnight on Sunday, the pump prices of fuel spiked, thanks largely to G.O.B. increasing import duties on Premium, Regular and Diesel. That import duty increase, tacked on to an increase in acquisition costs, led to Regular fuel going up to a controlled price of eight dollars and fifty-two cents in the city. But even as consumers prepare to dig deeper into their pockets, another release from G.O.B. today announced a decrease in Regular fuel. According to the release, acquisition costs for a new shipment of fuel over the weekend decreased, though only for Regular and Kerosene. So on Tuesday at midnight, the pump price of Regular fuel in the city went down to eight dollars and twenty cents. The fluctuation of pump prices has highlighted a disturbing scenario, though. On Monday, multiple reports to our studio indicated that some gas stations increased the pump prices of fuel on Boxing Day, fully two days before those prices were to go into effect. Today we did our own verification, following the decrease in price of Regular at midnight. At one-thirty today we visited three gas stations. Two of them were still charging eight dollars and fifty-two cents, more than twelve hours after the decrease was effected. Only one of those gas stations carried the correct price for Regular fuel, eight dollars and twenty cents. Since there’s no fuel police to verify that gas stations charge the correct price for fuel, we’d advise that the next time you go fill up take a look at the price on the pump before that fuel is pumped into your vehicle.