World Bank for change of POL price mechanism

The World Bank (WB) is pressing for giving up the current mechanism for fixing petroleum products prices, and assigning the job to some independent organisation to equally protect all stakeholders' interest.Sources told Business Recorder on Monday that a WB team had met the officials of Ministry of Petroleum (MoP) last week to convey that the existing oil prices review system was not 'independent' as it represented only the oil marketing companies.Although the Bank has not directly demanded that Pakistan should hand over the role to the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra), MoP officials said they were quite clear that this was its ultimate aim. They said they were also clear that Ogra is the only independent body, which has the required expertise and system in place to take up the job to restore the consumers' confidence.The World Bank and other international donors are critical of the current oil prices' review system and want the job to be done by an independent body.Sources said that MoP officials told the World Bank team that the government was already mulling changes in the exiting system to review the oil prices.The government has hired an international organisation to study the system and suggest some workable mechanism to fix oil prices. The government is expecting the report of the international agency shortly.

Buisness Recorder