The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio has said that the Senate will intervene in the present hike in the pump prices of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL if the need arises for the intervention.
Recall that that the retail stations of NNPCL raised the price of petrol to N1,030 from N897/litre in Abuja, and in Lagos it was hiked to N998/litre from N868/litre.
Answering a question on his take on the increase in fuel price by the NNPCL during the Commissioning of the new Press Centre for Senate Correspondence, Akpabio said,: “I haven't actually assessed what is happening in terms of pump price increase, but it's not pump price increase, it's deregulation.
"If you are taking away the consumer subsidy and then you want people to pay for the actual price of what we consume, it means if you have five cars you will now use one or two.
“It simply means that you are going to stop the idea of subsidy in order to make sure that the monies are used for other things. So I don't expect any increase in pump price.
“I will expect the market forces to determine prices. I would expect that now that the NNPCL is no longer going to bring petroleum products into the country, it means those who have the capacity will bring it and the more the products are available, the cheaper the price.
“So at the beginning, it may seems to be increasing, but I believe strongly that with the production from Dangote and then the other refineries when they become functional and the fact that it is now open to all to bring in products into the country, I can assure you that we may not even see higher pump prices.
“So please let's not dwell on the increase in pump price. We will assess it and if there is need for us to intervene we will intervene."
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