Mr Peter Esele, Former President of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) says the Petroleum Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) has no right to increase petrol pump price.
Esele said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Benin on Friday.
NAN reports that PETROAN, through it’s president, Dr Billy Gillis-Harry on Monday announced increase in retail petrol price from N160 to N178
However, Esele said that the Association had no right to increase petrol pump, adding that only the Petroleum Product Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) had the right to increase pump price.
He said that what the association had done by announcing the increase in petrol price was to drawn attention to the challenge they were facing in the industry.
“They feel their pain from what they are expected to pay in the depot.
“So that is one of the ways to draw attention to their plight. The measure is to bring pressure on the government to look into their plight.
“It’s their right to do so”, he said.
The former PENGASSAN President also said that what the current situation potends to the N5 reduction on pump price of petrol announced by the Federal Government last year was that the Federal Government had not yet enforced what they want to do.
He however, said that one of the things the Federal Government did was that, because the price of crude oil was down at that time, the government looked at it, using the PPPRA to reduce the price of petrol.
“But what you have now is, if the price of crude is about 60 dollars now, with the devaluation of the naira, we are looking at N179-N180 as the landing cost.
“And going forward, we may be paying if the downstream oil sector is fully deregulated as high as N198-N200 per litre, ” he said.
Esele said that in view of the economic dynamics in the current oil price, the downstream oil sector may not have been fully deregulated.
“I don’t think we are fully deregulated, because, I still think government is paying subsidies.
“There is still subsidy payment being made somewhere, and if you say it’s fully deregulated, if landing cost is at N180, and you are selling at N160 or N168, who then is paying the difference?”, He said.
Esele further canvassed for awareness campaigns by government to inform citizens especially the ordinary man of the impact of the rising crude oil prices on pump price.
“It’s something that we expect the ministry of Information to talk about, bring out the economic aspect of it and let people know this is where we are, and this is where we are going.
“But the other side of it, is for the government to also reach out to the people to let them know that this is what we are doing to cushion the effect.
“So if the prices are going up, and the people have to go through some pain, then you also find a way to mitigate whatever pains they are going through. That is the politics of deregulation”, Esele said.
