Consumers could gain a clearer picture of whether fuel prices are truly justified if the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) expands the information it publishes to include each Oil Marketing Company’s (OMC) share of total industry taxes and net profits.
This is an advocacy by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of StarOil, Philip Kwame Tieku.
Kwame Tieku argues that while the NPA already publishes data on OMC fuel volumes and market share, this alone does not reveal whether higher pump prices are driven by genuine business costs or by operational inefficiencies.
He believes making public each OMC’s contribution to total industry taxes and net profits would provide a stronger evidence base for assessing the financial health and efficiency of players in the downstream petroleum sector.
According to him, such transparency would ultimately work in favour of consumers by helping policymakers determine whether existing fuel pricing policies, including the debate over maintaining a price floor, are supported by facts rather than assumptions.
“Some OMCs just want the customer to pay for their inefficiencies,” he said, stressing that publishing profitability data would expose whether companies charging higher prices are genuinely under financial pressure or are simply operating inefficiently.
He explained that if an OMC consistently charges higher fuel prices but accounts for only a small share of industry profits, it could indicate poor operational efficiency rather than unavoidable costs.
Conversely, if companies selling fuel at lower prices are found to generate stronger profits, it would demonstrate that competitive pricing and profitability can coexist.
Such information, he noted, would provide policymakers with practical insights when designing or reviewing fuel pricing regulations, while giving consumers greater confidence that pump prices reflect market realities instead of hidden inefficiencies.
Kwame Tieku maintains that greater transparency on taxes and profits would shift discussions about fuel pricing from speculation to data-driven analysis, creating stronger accountability across the industry and helping ensure that consumers are not unfairly burdened with the cost of inefficient business practices.
