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Azeri Drivers Claim Gas Stations Cheat Them
Listen to the original radio broadcast by clicking the play button below (in Azeri).
Transcript
By Ramil Memedov | February 6, 2008
NAT Sound Irada Javadova starts her car. The sound of the engine comes under my voice and disappears after 5 seconds.
NARRATOR: Ramil Mammadov VO.
Drivers say they are still cheated by the petrol stations in terms of volume and quality of gasoline in Azerbaijan, a country which sells gasoline to the world market.
Sound: Drivers expressing their concerns
Gasoline is of low quality anyway. Everybody knows it is of low quality. Everybody knows. State traffick police officers pull a car over to do a check up. They say you have problems with your engine. In reality, it is not the engine but low quality petrol. How can a new car have problems? They issue a ticket.
Lawyer Irada Javadova buys gasoline from the gas station. 93 petrol, - how much?
NARRATOR: VO: Lawyer Irada Javadova, who has been driving for 10 years, got into an argument with a gas station attendant while we were at the station.
Irada Javadova arguing at the gas station. 20 seconds.
Irada: How much is it –
Attendant: 23 manat.
Irada: How many liters of gasoline did you pump? –
Attendant: 45 liters worth 23 manats.
Irada: But there is no 45 liters here.
Come over here. Look, I had five liters. Now you say it is 45 liters. I will have to argue with you again. My meter shows it is 40 liters. What shall I do. It shows 40. Do I need to quarrel with you again?
Attendant: I only trust the petrol pump.
Irada: I only trust my car’s meter.
Narrator: VO: Irada Javadova and other drivers claim that the amount of gasoline pumped at the gas stations is not calculated accurately and besides the purchased fuel mysteriously evaporates in the tank of the car a few days after it is purchased.
Drivers and Irada Javadova retell one story consequently.
Irada Javadova: It is unfortunate that all of us are cheated at the gas stations. The amount of pumped fuel displayed at a petrol pump doesn’t necessarily correspond to the amount of fuel shown in the meter.
Ali Mammadov: The majority of gasoline is of low quality.
Zohrab Sayadov: It is the gasoline we always buy. Lately it is of very black color.
Akif Gahramanov: There is something wrong with the gasoline. You fill it, it needs to be enough to cover 90 kms. You drive and it lasts only for 70 kms.
Irada Javadova: Once they underfilled it by 8 liters, another time by 12 liters. I was very shocked. It was in the evening. That same person working at the gas station felt ashamed and pumped an additional 5-6 liters for me.
Zohrab Sayadov: We have our carburetor washed once every week. It smells as if you burned rubber inside the car. It affects the carburetor and spark plugs.
Akif Gahramanov: I know if you bought it and decide not to drive you lose it. This is for sure. If you buy 10 liters of gasoline and do not drive for1-2 hours you lose 1 liter out of 10.
Irada Javadova: I have a Nissan Tida. It’s engine is 1.6. I contacted the car service telling them my car consumes 17 liters of gasoline. They couldn’t figure out what it was at that time. I observed it myself. If you fill your tank in the evening and hit the road on the following morning you can see that the amount of gazoline has decreased.
Sound which comes under my voice (Fade out)
VO: We couldn’t find evidence indicating that gasoline pumped at the gas stations is underfilled and of low quality. However, more than 30 drivers whom we have interviewed complained of the same things. Deputy Director of the Institute for Oil and Chemical Processes of the National Academy of Sciences, Vagif Abbasov, says that there are components which decrease quality of gasoline and it is possible to use them.
Vagif Abbasov speaking. There are different substances which can be mixed into gasoline. Refined parts of one substance is extracted in a facility in Sumgayit where supplementary products can be mixed together. Natural gasoline produced at a gas processing factory can be added, but only fuel that has a low amount of octane evaporated in low temperatures. On the other hand natural gasoline could also be added. In any case, these substances can be mixed and can worsen the amount of octane, causing evaporation, as well as the other performance problems.
Car sounds, come under my voice.
Author speaking: VO: Drivers say that evaporation iss not only a problem during winter months, but througout the year.
Eyyub Huseynov, chairman of Free Consumers Association says that so far hundreds of consumers contacted the organization about being cheated at gasoline stations.
Eyyub Huseynov: Gasoline producing entities are the same ones that exam the fuel. Here there is an association of sales, examination and manufacturing. In short, they work according to the three musketeer rule. The result is that millions of people are deceived on a grand scale.
Narrator: VO: Companies which own the network of gasoline stations deny they cheat customers. Azpetrol’s spokesperson Jamal Zeynalov
Azpetrol Gasoline sold at Azpetrol gas stations is not of low quality.
Narrator Spokesperson for Lukoil, Eldar Aliyev, says the same thing and added.
Lukoil We only do sales. We have nothing to do with processing of gasoline. You need to contact SOCAR.
Narrator The officials at the press service of SOCAR didn’t want to comment in regards to these claims.
Officials at the State Agency for Standardization, Metrology and Patent which is to oversee the sale of gasoline in line with the set standards, stressed that the quality of fuel sold at all gas stations is the same.
According to Movlud Garalov, sector director of the agency, the cheating in the volume of gasoline could be done by operators.
Though he mentioned that the agency was conducting a monitoring program regarding this issue, he refused to reveal the results of the monitoring. For the time being the government has not totally clarified the issue. Drivers in their turn have to argue on a daily basis when it is time to buy fuel.
Irada Javadova’s voice: “I will have to quarrel with you”.
City Nat sound, comes under my voice
Car sounds fade out with honks.
There is another thing that you have to pay attention to while filling your tank. Chair of Free Consumers Association, Eyyub Huseynov notes that every year consumers lose up to half a million manats as a result of what he calls cheating that occurs during the sale of gasoline.
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