By Kebba AF Touray
The Ministry for Finance and Economic Affairs (MoFEA) through its Permanent Secretary Abdoulie Jallow and Baboucarr Jobe, Deputy Finance Ministry, appeared and testified before the Joint Committee on Public Enterprise Committee (PEC) and Finance and Pubic Accounts Committee (FPAC).
The duo testified before the joint committee in the ongoing parliamentary inquiry into the fuel saga that is assigned to the said joint committee by the legislature, which was alleged to have happened in the Gambia in 2023.
During their testimonies, on Monday 26th August 2024, they told the joint committee, when it comes to the matter, the Ministry is only involved in the pricing of the petroleum products.
They told the committee that they are represented in the pricing committee and a decision on the price of petroleum products is made jointly with the Ministers responsible for Finance and Petroleum.
They informed the committee that the two Ministers consult each other to determine the price of the different petroleum products in the country.
“When it comes to the decision to import and export petroleum products that is the responsibility of the Ministry of Petroleum, but we are mainly responsible in the pricing of the petroleum products,” said PS Jallow.
This, he said, is manifested by the monthly publication of the prices of petrol, diesel, gasoline, kerosene by the Ministry, “so here, there is a committee that meets every month, a technical committee, will assess the current market condition including the developments in the international price of petroleum products”.
He added that the said committee does the assessment and makes recommendation to both the Ministers responsible for petroleum and finance, so it is on the advice of the technical committee that a decision is jointly taken on what is going to be the price of petrol, diesel or kerosene for the upcoming month.
On what will constitute the price per liter, he said first, there is need to establish what the international price of a particular petroleum product is, which the pricing committee does using reference international prices called plats prices.
He said in using this tool, they consider the month preceding the subsequent month to have a fair idea of what the international prices on a daily basis would be, and that is what they average out to get an estimate for what the price is.
He said the other variable that plays into it, is the supplier’s premium (what the supplier adds on international price), but what affects the price itself, is the exchange rate, adding that the supplier would buy an international product and would sell in Gambian Dalasi.
“So, you have to convert it into local currency and sell it in local currency. So, the exchange rate is a very important element of it. Another element is the density of each of the petroleum products, and the margin for the importer and retailers, as well as the taxes that are imposed on each of those products. So, it is mainly on international elements,” PS Jallow explained.
Asked how many traders import petroleum products, they told the committee that they have about five.
The committee asked them to state whether they are still active players, to which they said that some of them are still in the market.
To be continued
