WA, Oct. 23, GNA- The intermittent shortage of petrol that hit the Upper West region the last one week has so far shown no sign of abating. Road side fuel vendors who motorists depended on for their supplies in times of shortage have all vanished from their locations following report= s that they would be arrested if they engaged in that bussiness.

Some of them who spoke to Ghana News Agency on condition of anonymit= y said an announcement was made on local radio stations ordering them to st= op the practice of selling petrol by the road side and that anyone who went contrary to that order would be arrested and prosecuted.

Mr. Ceaser Tegyi, a Total filling Station Supervisor, told Ghana New= s Agency that in recent times, supply of petrol had not been regular at the= ir filling station, a situation that created the shortage. He said most filling stations in the Municipality had for over three=

months now not received their consignment of fuel. Mr. Tegyi hinted that one tanker arrived on Wednesday and that they had started selling but they were likely to run short of the commodity again by the close of Thursday due to the pressure on the station.

"The little that we get cannot last due to the total shortage of fue= l in the other filling stations. Our normal sale of about four thousand plu= s litres of fuel within twenty-four hours has increased to about ten thousa= nd, one hundred and sixty seven litres within the same period of time", Mr. Tegyi explained.

At the Goil Filling Station, the filling station attendant said they=

had for three weeks now run short of fuel as their tanker left for Accra in search of fuel but had not yet returned. He described the situation as unfortunate because they were losing their customers. However, a tanker containing only diesel had just arrived at the station as at the time of GNA's visit.