Parliament has ushered the National Petroleum Authority Amendment Bill, 2015 into the consideration stage for proposed amendments.
This was after the Bill was read for the second time on the House on Thursday, March 10.
The Bill is aimed at amending the National Petroleum Authority Act, 2005 (Act 691) to ensure the effective implementation of petroleum price liberalisation and other related matters.
The Deputy Minister for Petroleum, Mr Benjamin Dagadu, who moved the motion for the second reading, said the amendments were expected to give legal backing to the implementation of the full price liberalisation regime, with regard to petroleum products.
He said the amendment was also to ensure that the NPA Act, 2005 (Act 691) was aligned with the full deregulation of the petroleum downstream sector.
The deputy minister said the main objective of the price liberalisation regime was to halt the government’s continuous intervention in the pricing of petroleum products.
The Chairman of the Committee on Mines and Energy, Mr Amadu Bukari Sorogho, presenting the committee’s report on the bill, said the committee had proposed an amendment to paragraph 4.0 of its report which stated that the government adopted the full deregulation policy in 2005.
He said the government rather started the policy of full deregulation in 2005 and did not adopt the policy in 2005.
Mr Sorogho also said the committee proposed the deletion of paragraph 8, line 2(2)(m) of the Act which asks the NPA to publish the ex-refinery prices and the ex-com prices of petroleum products based on the prescribed petroleum pricing formula in the gazette.
He said that the deletion was necessary because the NPA was no longer allowed to fix prices under the deregulation policy.
Amendments proposed in the Bill
Clause one of the Bill amends section two of the NPA Act, 2005 to reflect the change in the role of the NPA under the liberalised price regime where petroleum service providers will set their own prices in accordance with the petroleum pricing formula which will be collated by the NPA for monitoring and publication purposes.
Clause two amends section 37 of the principal enactment to take into account the change in the definition of “Ministry” from “Ministry responsible for energy to Ministry responsible for petroleum” as defined in the interpretation section.
Under clause three, “liquid petroleum gas distributor” is replaced with “liquid petroleum gas marketing company” to reflect what currently exists in the downstream petroleum industry.
Clause four amends the interpretation section by adding a definition for “liquid petroleum gas marketing company”. The definitions of “Minister” and “Ministry” have also been amended to reflect what currently exists in the industry.
A definition for “price stabilisation margin” is also introduced by the amendment. — GB
By: www.dailyviewgh.com