The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, said that the only legal way the Federal Government could permanently remove the subsidy on petroleum products was to initiate an amendment to the Price Control Act or have it repealed entirely by the National Assembly.
He noted that in the schedules to the Act, petroleum products were listed among the items to be regulated through pricing.
Dogara on Monday also stated that an alternative was for the government to inaugurate the price control board provided for under the Act so that the board, in performing its functions, could remove petroleum products from the list.
“This is the most legal way to do it so that subsidy can go permanently. Its is not by policy pronouncements alone; so it is for the government to quickly put the board in place and this issue can be done with once and for all,” Dogara said.
According to Punch, Dogara spoke in Abuja when he received a delegation of members of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) at the National Assembly led by the President of the association, Chinedu Okoronkwo.
Dogara decried the perennial fuel scarcity in the country, saying the problem would have been mild were the country refining crude for domestic consumption.
“It is inexcusable that we cannot refine our crude in Nigeria for own consumption. Why are the citizens of an oil-producing country queuing up daily for fuel that they have in abundance? We need your expertise (IPMAN) to deal with this national shame,” he said.
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