The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) has maintained the petroleum prices deregulation has started despite concerns from some market watchers that the authority still determines the price of petroleum products.
Minority Spokesperson on Energy, K.T. Hammond has argued that the NPA still has a hand in the pricing of petroleum products since the deregulation regime is without a legal mandate.
Checks at several Oil marketing Companies (OMCs) showed different rates for fuel prices following the about 15% reduction in fuel prices.
However, the Chief Executive of the NPA, Moses Asaga in responding to the matter on the Citi Breakfast Show said the OMC’s are rather pricing their products independently due to the liberalized regime following the deregulation.
“I think that K.T. Hammond is misleading the public; it is never true that we [NPA] are setting the price and then people work within the band,” he said.
In practice we are doing a deregulation but if he [K.T. Hammond] is talking of a legal mandate then that one I will say we are in transition but we have made it known to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Energy which he is a ranking member and they gave us a node that we should bring those amendment, they didn’t restrain us.” Moses Asaga explained that the NPA Act which will be revised soon mandates the Authority “to do the monitoring of prices. The only way you can know and monitor the prices is for you to be able to do your in house research work which we have been doing in the last ten years, trying to get the FOB prices…everything we need to do to be able to get to an ex-pump. In the new deregulated dispensation, the OMCs and the BDCs are supposed to send us their indicative prices and will just monitor the indicative prices.”
He added that the NPA will only serve “as a Policeman with the standard so that if any individual OMC wants to go above the roof unreasonably, then the NPA will call that particular company to order
<<Print>>