The National Economic Council (NEC) has charged its committee to interface with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) with a view to determining the correct price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).
The governor of Bauchi State, Mohammed Abubakar, disclosed this to State House reporters after the NEC meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday.
The governor stated that the committee would consider the fuel prices in neighbouring countries.
He said: “The issue is, of course, caused by an interplay of the change rate of the Naira and the Dollar and the price of crude oil at the international market which affects the landing cost of refined products in Nigeria and in the process, makes the operation of the current price regime almost impossible without some measure of nil return for whoever is in the process.
“As at today, most of not all independent marketers have stopped importing refined products into Nigeria. It is only the NNPC that has been doing it. And the NNPC has been suffering a lot of set backs. The highest amount of under-recovery; by under recovery, it means the interplay between the landing cost of a liter of the PMS in Nigeria and the pimp price of that product.
“If the product lands at N170 for example, and you sell at N145, immediately, you know that you have an under-recovery of about N25 for each liter of fuel. So, he (NNPC GMD) submitted his report and the National Economic Council has a committee that has been interfacing with all revenue generating agencies of the federal government under the chairmanship of the governor of Gombe State.
“That committee has been charged with the responsibility of interfacing with NNPC with a view to determining the correct price for PMS considering the price of the product in especially countries that are bordering Nigeria. Because that is one of the reasons that encourages smuggling of the products to these areas.”
