Again, PDP demands slash in fuel price
…Asks NNPC to recover overcharge, stolen subsidy funds
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has restated its call on the federal government to slash the pump price of fuel to reflect the prevalent slump in the cost of crude oil and petroleum products in the international market
The PDP insisted that the government has no justifiable reason to continue to retain the pump price of fuel at N125 per liter despite the drastic crash in the international price of crude oil.
Given the prevalent international price, the party said the appropriate price template for domestic pump price of fuel in Nigeria ought to be between N60 to N70 per liter, in response to the variables of international market forces.
The PDP stressed that the All Progressives Congress (APC) government ought to have reduced the pump price, earlier in the year to N90 per liter when crude oil price slumped to about $30 per barrel.
The party’s demand was contained in a statement on Tuesday by its spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan.
The statement reads in part: “The PDP berates the APC and cautioned it to stop fleecing Nigerians with inappropriate fuel price template, particularly at this time when the citizens are battling with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our party therefore, demands that the federal government should reduce the pump price of fuel without further delay”.
In the same vein, the PDP asked the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to immediately declare the billions of naira accruable as overcharge from the inappropriate N125 per liter since the crash in crude oil price and channel the funds for palliatives to Nigerians.
It further demanded that the NNPC should recover proceeds of its alleged sleazy and over-bloated oil subsidy regime, which should also be channeled as palliatives to Nigerians.
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The party recalled that the NNPC had, earlier in the month, confessed that the APC administration had, in the last five years, engaged in underhand subsidy deals, which included a hazy under-recovery for unnamed West African countries, running into trillions of naira, while Nigerians continued to bear the burden on unsubsidized fuel.
The PDP also restated its call on the National Assembly to immediately open an investigation into the fuel price overcharge as well as the fraudulent subsidy regime through which over N14 trillion had allegedly been frittered by a few unscrupulous individuals operating as a cabal in government circles.
