The Federal Government has inaugurated the ‘Bipartite Plus Committee’ on technical framework on the pricing of Premium Motor Spirit popularly known as petrol.
This is happening as the new price regime for PMS announced last week by the government officially took off on Monday.
The inauguration was sequel to the outcome of a series of bipartite meetings between the Federal Government and the organised labour represented by the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Unions Congress to fashion out a framework to monitor and stabilise the petrol pump price.
The parley had agreed on December 8 to reduce the fuel pump price by N5 from N168 to N162.44 per litre with effect from December 14.
But inaugurating the committee on Monday, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said the government has not fixed the price of petrol, said, “It was a price reduction gotten from the commercials like demurrage, trans-shipment and living storage.”
He said further that the committee would be expected to do more to ‘entrench transparency in that area’.
According to the minister, the committee’s terms of reference include, 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 Act; engage all relevant stakeholders to establish a price review framework and carry out any other assessment that will facilitate the work of the committee.
Ngige stated, “The technical committee is expected to submit its report by Monday, 25th January 2021 in the first instance to our main committee just like the Electricity Tariff Technical Committee will do the same day.
“It is expected that the committee will work assiduously to come up with a viable framework for PMS price modulation.”
The members include Mr Onochie Anyaoku (Chairman) and the Secretary, Mr Lawal Musa from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
Onochie said the committee would provide an evidence-based report to the government to enable it to make informed decisions.
Punch