The Federal Government has announced that the pump price of petrol will drop to around N85 or N86 as from January 1st, 2016.
Minister of State for Petroleum, Emmanuel Kachikwu, disclosed this to journalists in Rivers whilst conducting a tour of facilities at the Port Harcourt refinery.
Speaking on the new pricing regime he said,
“It is out. I signed off on it yesterday (Thursday). I imagined that in the next couple of days the marketers would get advice on that. The nice thing about the PPPRA, where I signed up on it yesterday is that the price will be far below N87.
“So for the first time people will understand that the pricing modulation I was talking about is not a gimmick. It is for real. We have gone to find out how we will be able fluctuate this market to reflect what the reality of crude market is. The objective is that one, we cannot afford to continue to subsidize.
“We can’t even understand where those subsidies were going to. There is a lot of fraud elements in it so we need to cut that off.
“The second is the earning capacity of the Federal Government is deteriorating by the day with lower prices of crude and come out more.”
Concerning the scrapping of fuel subsidy, the minister said the government could no longer afford to sustain the program considering the massive fraud that had tainted the program.
Kachikwu said the government had found that it was feasible to allow the international forces of supply and demand drive the price in a way that is economical for Nigeria and Nigerians.
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