ICCC to prosecute Fuel Stations that do not comply with required fuel pricing

The PNG Independent Consumer and Competition Commission (ICCC), is warning all fuel stations to comply with the approved fuel rates or be dealt with.

This comes after a successful case the Commission took against a fuel station (unnamed) in Port Moresby back in May for breaching the Prices Regulation Act.

The fuel retailer that didn’t comply was given prior warnings by the Commission until action had to be taken for continuous disregard of requests from ICCC.

“We make sure fuel prices that we set are reasonable for consumers and businesses to afford,” said Mr. Ain.

“We ran out of patients and we decided to take the last option and that is to take the non compliant operator to court and we succeeded.”

The concerned retailer had to pay a fine for not complying.

The Commission each month issues the regulated fuel rates in the country to be charged at service stations that is calculated based on the Import Parity Price (IPP) for a specific month which determines the increase or decrease of fuel rates.

Meanwhile, ICCC is looking at increasing the penalty for fuel retailers not complying with regulated fuel prices as a deterrent to retailers wanting to increase the prices in the future.

The Commission’s General Manager Mr. Avi Hubert said in their view the penalty is not tough enough, as such the Commission is in the process to amend the current Prices Regulation Act, especially the penalty provisions. PNGFM