Head of Economic Relations at the National Petroleum Authority, Abbas Tasunti, says the Authority is committed to ensuring that consumers get value for their money at the pumps.

According to him, the deregulated nature of the petroleum market does not mean that the regulator is taking its oversight duties for granted.

“It is for that reason why the oil marketing companies and even the bulk import and distribution companies are required to submit their prices to us for us to ensure that every price you see out there has been computed in accordance with the prescribed petroleum pricing formula,” he said.

He was responding to concerns about alleged overpricing of petroleum products on the market on PM Express Business Edition.

He stated that while companies are allowed to price their products at their own will, the regulator undertakes market analyses to ensure that the prices are realistic and reasonable.

He explained that the NPA measures the prices of goods on the market to an internal price benchmark to ensure that OMCs are not overpricing their products.

“Even though we do not set a cap that companies are not supposed to price beyond, the market is free, companies are supposed to set their price on their own economics and their own cost of doing business, but we as a regulator every window we do our own analysis, we also estimate and project prices.

“We do not publish this for a reason because once a regulator publishes a price; the market is likely to follow that. So what we do is we compute our prices looking at the market and the reality of the market and then compare to check how the marketers also set their prices,” he said.

He added that “Now consumers should have been worried if as a regulator they realise that there is a huge disparity between the prices – what we project and what the market does. If you see the numbers from our projection and what the market does they’re very close.

“Sometimes the market is lower because of the competition. You would want to ask how would someone think there is overpricing or maybe the consumer is being shortchanged, then we would have to look at the numbers.”