A day after the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) recommended a petrol price of between N408.5 per liter and N380 per liter, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) announced that there is no official announcement of any price hike for the product.
A spokesperson for NNPC, Kennie Obateru, told The Nation on Thursday, May 20, that the state governors do not have the powers to determine the pump price of petrol. Obateru explained that petrol price-fixing lies with the purview of the federal government. Similarly, the Nigerian government has announced that there will be no increase in the pump price of petrol in the country in June.
According to Premium Times, the minister of state for petroleum, Timipre Sylva, made the announcement Friday, May 21.
He said: “Once again, it has become necessary to assure Nigerians that despite the burden of under-recovery, the Federal Government is not in a hurry to increase the price of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) to reflect current market realities. “The current price of petrol will be retained in the month of June until the ongoing engagement with organized labor is concluded.” The minister noted that the NNPC cannot continue to bear the subsidy burden on its books, noting that it pays between N100 and 120 billion a month to keep the pump price at the current level.
