The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe kachikwu says the mandate of the president is to ensure that N145 petrol pump price was maintained Kachikwu while briefing newsmen in Abuja, on Friday said there was no plan to increase the pump price
Kachikwu while briefing newsmen in Abuja, on Friday said there was no plan to increase the pump price.
Ibe Kachikwu “There are social media commentaries implying that when we met with the committee set up by the senate president to review the causative factors of the fuel scarcity and find solutions, there was a statement credited to me that said that price might be increased to N180.
“No such statement was made; no such plan is intended.
“I needed to clarify this, because sometimes, some of these rumour mongering all add to the difficulties NNPC had in terms of being able to control price speculation.
“The president mandate on this issue is very specific: we are not increasing price from N145,” he said.
He said that the essence of the meeting on Thursday and the committee meeting still going on was to find mechanisms to ensure that fuel queues do not come back to Nigeria.
According to him, part of the meeting is also to ensure the wetting of all the stations so that product is available at every time for Nigerians.
“Also, that private marketers that had pulled out from participation, that we deal with their problems, so that they can participate effectively in the supply of petroleum products in the country, all within the parameters o f N145 per litre pump price.
“I thought we should make this very clear.
This is not a matter for speculation; anybody who does speculation on it is not being helpful to Nigerians; that they have already gone through a very difficult Christmas period.
“We are working night and day to try and find solutions,” he said Kachikwu frowned at those politicizing the issue as government was working hard to provide succour to Nigerians and to provide product at N145.
“I have reacted to this, I think it is very important to make this go universally clear.
“We are actually looking at steps for those who have breached these processes, what we can do to penalise them and also set very stiff penalties for those who go to sell above N145.,” he added.
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