The Communications Manager of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Mohammed Abdul-Kudus, has clarified the role played by the regulatory body when it comes to the issuance and scrapping of fuel levies in the country.

According to him, the Authority has no hand in tinkering with the amount of levies charged on a litre of fuel.

He explained that the Authority simply acts as a referee between the government and the consumer and thus has no power of determination over the levies charged by the government.

Mr. Abdul-Kudus, however, stated that when given the opportunity to review new levies, NPA tries as much as possible to advice government on ways and means to make the impact of the new levy easy on consumers.

“They (fuel price levies) are engineered by government and you have Parliament as the vehicle for this position. And so some of them like the Special Petroleum Tax if there’s going to be review, if there’s going to be a scrapping, there’s going to be anything done about it, then certainly Parliament will be called to work on that.

“We only come in when the decision is taken, and we’re supposed to review the pricing formula. That is when we come in. But we don’t actually make a determination on its review. We could have discussions with government, advise on probably the effecting degree or percentage of what should be more appropriate that will probably cushion the consumer,” he said on JoyNews’ PM Express show, Wednesday.

He added that “We are the final implementers of the final decision that has been taken or might be taken and as and when that will be taken, and we’re supposed to do something about some of the levies or taxes, if we’re arguably called upon, we’d do what is expected of us.”