Federal Government has reduced pump price of premium motor spirit otherwise know as petrol from N168 per litre to N162.44 per litre with effect from December 14, 2020.
Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige told reporters at the end of a meeting with labour leaders which began at 9pm on Monday and ended at 1:30am on Tuesday.
The product presently sells at N168, following the decision of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of the Federal Government – owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to increase the ex-depot price of petrol from N147.67 per litre to N155.17 per litre in November.
The ex-depot price is the price at which the product is sold by PPMC to marketers at the depots.
Read Also: Petrol To Sell At N168-N170/Litre As PPMC Increases Depot Rate To N155
In addition, Ngige said a technical committee has been set up by the larger house to ensure price stability in the industry.
He stated that the committee, which will report back on January 25, 2021, will be appraising the market forces and every other thing that will make for stability in the industry.
The Minister however insisted that the price reduction was not meant to suspend deregulation, because it did not affect the price of crude oil but on areas where NNPC as the main importer had agreed that it could cut freight and demurrage costs.
Ngige said;
Our discussion was fruitful and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation which is the major importer and marketers of petroleum products and customers have agreed that there will be a slide down of the pump price of PMS and that the price cut will get us about N5 per litre and that the price cut will take effect from next Monday, a week today.
On the electricity tariff, Ngige said both sides agreed to wait to allow the special committee constituted to examine the justification for a new cost-reflective tariff introduced by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
The committee was set up after a September 28 meeting between the federal government and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
According to Ngige, the next meeting date will be January 25.
