By Abdulrahman Abdulraheem
The Federal Government has denied plans to increase the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly called petrol.
Panic over the likely increase in the price was raised at the weekend when former GMDs of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), met with the present occupant of the office and suggested that the present price regime was not commensurate with current economic realities.
They therefore called for an upward review in the pump price.
Oil marketers had also hinted that government may be forced to increase the price due to the continued scarcity of foreign exchange to finance the importation of the product.
The Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru who held a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, however denied knowledge of such plan.
The two men did not grant interview to journalists but dropped a few comments while walking out of the President’s office.
When accosted Baru told journalists that “there is nothing like that. Go to PPPRA” .
Kachikwu on his part also said, “there is no memo to that effect, wait for the GMD”.
The government had liberalised the downstream sector of the petroleum industry on May 11, 2016, forcing an increase in the pump prices of petrol from N86 and N86.5 per litre to between N135 and N145 per litre.
