The Federal Government has inaugurated a Technical Committee to monitor Price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) under the new price regime in the country.
Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige, who inaugurated the committee on Monday in Abuja, said that representatives of the Federal Government, organised labour and other stakeholders in the petroleum industry would be members.
Others include petrol retailers, independent marketers and the Pipelines Products Marketing Company (PPMC) that had approved the new template.
“The inauguration is sequel to the outcome of series of Bipartite meetings between the Federal Government and the Organised Labour represented by Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Unions Congress (TUC).
“The meeting is to fashion out a mechanism and framework to monitor and stabilise PMS pump price.
“You will recall that the last Bipartite meeting held on December 7, agreed to lower the PMS pump price by N5 with effect from today, Monday, Dec. 14.
“This is aimed at bringing relief to the Nigerians people. In effect, the pump price is now N162.44k per litre with effect from today, Dec. 14,” he said.
He charged the committee to review the cost of supply and incidental costs and arrive at the basis of determining Market Reflective Pump Price cap under the template of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) Act currently set to be scrapped.
He also charged the committee to engage all relevant stakeholders to establish a price review framework and carry out any other assessment that would facilitate the work of the committee.
“The technical committee is expected to submit its report by Jan. 25, 2021 in the first instance to our main committee just like the Electricity Tariff Technical Committee will do same day,” he said.
Members of the committee chaired by Mr Onochie Anyaoku with Mr Lawal Musa as Secretary, include Mr Umar Ajiya, Mr Festus Osifo and Mr Williams Akporehia.
Others include Saidu Abdullahi, Ahmed Bobbi and Ahmed Zakari, Special Assistant to the President on Infrastructure, among others.
Speaking on behalf of his colleagues, Anyaoku said that the committee would provide an evidence-based report to the leaders to enable them make informed decisions.
“I am pleased to note that membership of the committee is quite broad and practically every stakeholder, every player in the sector, is in. This will make the job of data gathering, data analysis very easy for us.
Anyaoku promised that the committee would take necessary decisions as to how the prices would be modulated in a way that consumers would not be penalised for the inefficiencies in the supply chain.
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