PETROLEUM Product Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) has hinged the competitiveness of the downstream sector in Nigeria to the implementation of the proposed reforms as contained in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).

The Executive Secretary of the agency, Reginald Stanley, who made this submission during the visit of Senate Committee on Downstream to PPPRA, therefore urged the Senate Committee to facilitate a speedy passage of the bill, which is expected to bring great dividends to the Nigerian public.

He therefore assured the Senators that ‘the Agency is committed to sustaining the tempo of the current reform initiatives, guaranteeing adequate supply of

products nationwide, as well as ensuring reasonable cost-saving to the government’.

Stanley alluded to the cooperation and support received from the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs.Diezani Allison-Madueke. “All these achievements sure would not have been attainable, but for the leadership and direction so graciously given by the Minister, under the purview of President Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda”.

He listed the key reform initiatives by the PPPRA to include; compliance with best practices; compliance with budget provisions for subsidy;RA to include; compliance with best practices; compliance with budget provisions for subsidy; equity, transparency and promotion of local content principles; accuracy of national consumption statistics, prevention of Bill of Laden manipulation; exclusion of stolen materials as well as prevention of round tripping.

Chairman of the Senate Committee, Senator Magnus Abe, said the Committee was on oversight visit to PPPRA to review the Agency’s budget implementation, progress made onproducts cost and subsidy implementation, as well as the stability of products supply across the country.

He said that Senators were impressed with the progress that the agency was making and expect it to even do more.

Abe added: “It should be made clear here and now that at no time had this Committee been unnecessarily hard on PPPRA. Instead, the Senate and indeed the whole Nigerians had been concerned that those who have positions of responsibilities to manage resources are those that should be more careful.

When we kept insisting that things could be done better, we were convinced that we could improve on what we are doing”.

Abe called on all Nigerians to be vigilant, noting that the country can now breathe a sigh of relief because of the national attention that was earlier brought to bear on the PPPRA.

He sounded a note of warning that, ‘all those who ran away with their briefcases are still hanging around, waiting for how to come back. “It actually looks as if the coast is clear, but I can assure you that those who have brought us to this ignoble situation are likely to come back even stronger, once they know that the entire rot has been cleared, hence the call for eternal vigilance.”

Senator Mohammed DanjumaGoje, a member of the Downstream Committee, commended the Management of PPPRA over the drop on the subsidy figures. “To have been able to achieve such a feat after using strict criteria to weed out those portfolio Marketers, shows your level of commitment and patriotism”,

He therefore called on the Agency to continue to do more, knowing that it is under the watchful eyes and by extension, tremendous pressure from those big toes you have trampled upon while discharging your statutory duties to the nation.