ON Tuesday, the Federal Government announced a reduction in the pump price of petrol from N168 to N162.44 per litre which is set to take effect from December 14.
Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment disclosed this at the end of a meeting with labour union leaders.
Following the decision of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company, PPMC to increase the ex-depot price of petrol from N147.67 per litre to N155.17 per litre in November which is currently being sold at N168 at fuel stations.
The ex-depot price is the price at which the product is sold by the PPMC to marketers at the depots.
Ngige said a technical committee has been set up to ensure price stability in the industry which will send in their report on January 25, after appraising the market forces and other things that would ensure stability in the industry.
“Our discussion was fruitful and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC 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,” he said.
Ngige explained that the price reduction was not meant to suspend deregulation because it did not affect the price of crude oil but on areas where the NNPC as the main importer had agreed that it could cut costs like freight and demurrage costs.
He said the new price slash was a product of a meeting by joint committee of the NNPC and labour representatives, which looked into ways of cutting costs.
On electricity tariff, both parties agree to stand down until January 25, to enable the special committee dealing with complaints conclude their deliberations.
Amos Abba is a journalist with the International Center for Investigative Reporting, ICIR, who believes that courageous investigative reporting is the key to social justice and accountability in the society.