Nigeria’s Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) has said it would enforce the official pump price of Premium Motor Spirit popularly known as petrol.
The statement by Executive Director, Distribution Systems, Storage and Retail Infrastructure of NMDPRA, Ugbugo Ukoha, comes after he visited several jetties in Lagos.
According to him, the price of petrol is regulated therefore, it could not be increased arbitrarily.
“PMS is a regulated product and the prices are fixed. The ex-depot price is known. The pump price remains N165 and the authority is ever ready to enforce those rules.
“So, we will continue to urge Nigerians to keep within these operating rules,” Ukoha said.
Petrol marketers under the aegis of independent marketers had earlier this week urged it’s members to sell fuel at N180. They cited increment in the ex-depot price of PMS by some private depots where they were buying the product from.
Ukoha insisted that the government was ready to enforce the rule when necessary.
With the increase in the price of diesel used by transporters, Ukoha said it has thrown up a new challenge.
“So, when we observed that this poses a big challenge in the movement of other products, we made the representation to the Minister of State for Petroleum and Mr President graciously approved that the freight rate for trucks be increased.
“There’s a N10 addition, which we will apply to the different routes to enable trucks to move to docks easily with less burden.
“With these kinds of efforts from the government, we can only continue to appeal to operators within this industry to play by the rules,” he said.
