APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) says it will not engage in the release of templates for the sale of petrol in the country since the market has been liberalized.
The Chief Executive officer of the NMDPRA, Mr Farouk Ahmed, told a news conference on Friday in Abuja that market forces would henceforth dictate the prices under the liberalised market.
“As far as we are concerned in the NMDPRA, this is not like before when the PPPRA fixes the price; in a deregulated market, it is the market forces that dictate the price,” he said.
Ahmed, however, said the market was now open for any company that would want to import petrol as far as they meet all the requirements.
“So, it is not about the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) alone.
“We put the regulation in place, we make sure quality control is complied with, we make sure the product is there and we give licence to prospective importer.
“We make sure we guide the operations of everyone in the sector whether at the depot or wherever the product is, but we will not put a cap to say this is what the price must be,” local media reports on Saturday quoted Ahmed as saying.
He disclosed that the NMDPRA, the Federal Government and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) would mount aggressive monitoring of the activities in the downstream sector to prevent profiteering by marketers.
According to Ahmed, the marketers are now free to source their foreign exchange anywhere around the world to import petroleum products and recover their costs without impediments.
It will be recalled that the NNPC Ltd had on Wednesday released a template for the sale of petrol across the country because it is the only importer of the product.
GIK/APA
Nigerian agency promises not to fix petrol prices
