Sylva: Deregulation coming after talks
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Timipre Sylva
*Let market forces determine petrol price’
With the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) in place, it is now constitutional to deregulate the oil and gas sector of the economy, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Timipre Sylva, said yesterday.
According to thenationonlineng.net, the minister, who declined to speak on the kick-off date, said the downstream petroleum sector would be deregulated once the Federal Government and organised labour agree.
He said the pump price of petrol would remain N162 per littre for parties (government and labour) to conclude ongoing talks.
According to him, there is a consensus now that government should deregulate it, saying President Muhammadu Buhari will today speak on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which he signed into law on Monday.
Sylva told reporters in Abuja the country has not option to deregulation.
When asked to give date, he said: ”I cannot give you a timeline now. But it is not going to be too far from now because we have done quite a lot of extensive work.
“As soon as the government and the organised Labour agree on the process of putting infrastructrure in place, Nigeria will deregulate.
“So, we will keep it here at N162 within that band now for the time being but we are also in the time at the moment trying to work out to allow the deregulation to come to fruition.
“We have agreed between Labour and us that we need to put a framework in place for the implementation of deregulation.
“More or less, there is a consensus across the table now that deregulation is desirable. But how do we achieve it? That is the question now.
