The Nigeria Government has announced that the country’s downstream oil sector has been deregulated.
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, spoke on Thursday at a ministerial briefing.
He noted that the reduction in the pump price of the Premium Motor Spirit, popularly known as petrol two months ago was deregulated.
The cost of PMS was then reduced from one hundred and forty-five naira to one hundred and twenty-five naira per liter.
“I am not just announcing deregulation today. Deregulation took effect on March 19, Fortunately, we have completely deregulated the product supply system, so we took out subsidies from PMS”, NAN quoted him as saying.
“I see some kind of paradox because we started by trying to stop product smuggling across our borders. With deregulation and removal of subsidy, I see us getting to the point where we might encourage development of the market even outside our borders.”
He pointed that the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) pricing regulation was strategic as the government would not allow the marketers to determine the price.
“It is the government’s responsibility to protect the consumers. If you want to buy anything, you have what you call the recommended price. The consumer protection agency will fix a price, so that nobody will profiteer on the people.”
Sylva noted that the regulator would always determine product cost, but would give dealers space to make profit and ensure consumers were protected.
“If you say PPPRA should not work with the marketers, they can decide to profiteer on the people. Look at one problem that we have been having with them; we dropped PMS and AGO (Diesel) landing cost but the marketers have refused to bring the price down.”
The minister assured that the federal government would protect the consumers, as the government is doing everything possible towards achieving that.
On the price template for May, Sylva confirmed that PPPRA was instructed not to announce any price.
“It is not necessary. After all, FAAN determines the price of airline tickets and doesn’t announce them all the time. They just discuss with the marketers and they increase the ticket price,” he said.
“It is not necessary. After all, FAAN determines the price of airline tickets and doesn’t announce them all the time. They just discuss with the marketers and they increase the ticket price,” he said.
