Nigerians should expect an increase in the pump price of Premium Motor Spirt (PMS), popularly called petrol anytime soon as the Petroleum Equalisation Fund(PEF), has concluded plans to increase petroleum transportation pricing template from N3.89k per litre to N9.11k, Daily Sun investigation has revealed. But the Executive Secretary of PEF, Mr. Ahmed Bobboi, said the pricing template was delayed due to ongoing negotiations between labour and government. Under the National Transportation Code(NTA) supervised by PEF, an organ of the Ministry of Petroleum, collections and claims settlement under NTA is mainly collected from two kinds of product transactions; Bridged products and Local transactions. NTA on Bridged products are deducted at source from Marketers that are within Zone 1 and 2 (Claim Zone); while those within Zone 3-9 (Contribution Zone), are reimbursed for both the NTA and Bridging elements of their transactions. An industry source who pleaded anonymity because of the political nature of PEF and fear of victimisation said should PEF increase NTA, price of fuel will increase. The source who lamented that PEF was a scam said that those that are meant to be contributing to PEF fund in zone 1 and 2 were not doing so, while those that are filling claims for zones 3-9 were not actually landing products at those locations.
The Sun