Rising cost of cooking gas: NALPGAM charges Sylva for urgent intervention
By Oladipupo Olayemi
The Nigeria Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM) has called for the urgent intervention over the increasing and skyrocketing price of cooking gas.
The association charged the Minister of state for Petroleum Resources Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Timipre Sylva about finding a lasting solution to the continuous rise in the prices of domestic gas in the country.
NALPGAM made this known through an open letter to the Minister titled, “Skyrocketing price of domestic gas in Nigeria – A call for urgent intervention.”
The publication which was jointly signed by the National president of NALPGAM, Olatunbosun A.Oladapo and the Executive Secretary of NALPGAM, Bassey Essien, they gathered that “despite the strategies employed by the Government to increase the internal sources of Domestic gas production for consumption in the country and also to reduce the dependency on imported gas, the availability of the product for domestic consumption has been slant to 65% import dependence while only 35% has been attributed to local supply.
“The drastic increase in price does not only tell on the marketers but also on the consumers which have reverted to the use of kerosene, charcoals, and firewood, and the importers who have stopped importation of cooking gas into the country. Now sale in the region of N11million per 20MT has increased daily to N300,000 – N500,000 per 20MT truck without the position of VAT and customs duties.
“The obvious devaluation of local currency, inability to access foreign exchange by importers, the increasing international price against which the cost of domestic gas is indexed as well as the anticipated reimposition of VAT and custom duties with retrospective application and the Cooking gas has exponentially increased over the last few months from 3.5m per 20MT in January 2020 to 5.4m; 5.6m in December -January 2021, 6m in February and 11m October,2021 without any sign of abatement.”
They appealed to the Minister of state for Petroleum Resources federal republic of Nigeria to use his office to urgently address the daily increase in Gas price and save Nigerians the ordeal of finding solace in the use of charcoal,firewood,kerosene and other cooking energy.
The Association, however, recommended, among others, that imposition of VAT on LPG should be suspended, to make the LPG produced by NLNG to be priced based on Naira rather foreign currency, and continuous dialogue with middlemen in the distribution chain.
