Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, has faulted the recent N4 increase in the pump price of petrol at all the NNPC fuel stations nationwide. NNPC last week increased its pump price at its stations from N141 per liter to N145 per liter.
The minister said this after receiving an award at an event organized by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) in Abuja on Sunday.
He said; “It is obviously humbling and too early in the day to receive an award and to be recognised so soon in some of the things we are trying to do. It is humbling, I thank them very much.
“First, I am not aware that the NNPC has increased price. I need to look into that. It is a bit of a surprise for me, because there are processes in doing this, if they have done that, it means they are doing it wrongly.
“Let me find out what the facts are,”.
“Having said that, the reality is that what we did at the point where we did some liberalisation, was to enable the free market float the price.
“Obviously, as you look at foreign exchange differentiations and all that, it would impact. The worst thing you could do is to go back to an era where we basically were fixing prices.
“What we ought to be doing was watching the prices, making sure that they are not taking advantage of the common man; making sure that the template is respected.
“One of the things I think we had hoped to do, which we should still do, before we embark on any price increase is to work on those templates,”.
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