Pitia Solomon (L) and Morris Maitha Kiema Station Manager (R) Monday 21st February 2022/Photo by Dominic Paul
By Taban Henry
Juba City Council Authorities have shutdown Trojan Petrol Station in Nyakuron West residential area after some home owners around the station complained of oil leakage.
After alerting the City Council, the Deputy Mayor Solomon Pitia said they got the information from the sector commander alerting them about the leakage of petrol.
“I issued my orders that the petrol station should stop because it is dangerous to the people leaving here. Lives of the civilians are in danger. I as the Acting Mayor have decided that the station has to be closed and the remaining fuel has to be removed,” he ordered.
The Director of Munuki Block, Simon Kenyi said they identified that there is petrol that have moved for over 50 meters away from the petrol station.
“This came after some people were digging a toilet and they got that down the toilet was now petrol. We told the owner of the petrol station that they will not continue working until they identify where the leakage come from,” he said.
“We told him to remove all the petrol from the tanks and we told them that the work should first stop; no one should attempt to take the petrol to his home because they will cause us problem because it is too much,” he explained.
Speaking to the media Morris Maitha Kiema, the manager of Trojan Petrol Station admitted that there has been leakage with the pipelines but said there is no problem with the tanks adding that they are planning to put new pipes to the already damaged ones.
“We discovered the leakage through our calculation after checking, we found the tanks are okay but only the pipes are the ones leaking,” he said.
Meanwhile, the home owner only known as Bero explained how they got the leakage.
“We were digging latrine where we reached to almost three meters, we discovered petrol, we took small amount we light the match box and it lights as petrol after that the smell of the petrol was now getting to the people whom we were working with digging the latrine from there I told the boys to stop the work”.