The
federal government announced an end to the fuel subsidies, and thus changed the
official price of petrol price from N86.50 to N145 (maximum?) per litre.
Some, NOT all,
people are happy with this price increase.
We may face strikes in the coming week in protest of the new price regime.
But considering that for months Nigerian consumers have been paying more than N150/liter in painful conditions for the same, we might as well call the price what it is and hope for progress.
How badly are we doing at the pump?
The price of crude oil crashed - worldwide - in 2014, leading to
lower pump prices in Kenya,
cheap gasoline in the USA, - both countries now have about
30% lower petrol prices than in late 2014 as logic may predict, ... but in Nigeria, we see the opposite effect: prices have gone up 50% ...
On the other hand,
Saudi raised its super-low pump price about 50% too, and
we Nigerians don't pay more for fuel than the typical (non-oil-rich) country.
Criticism of the latest petrol (PMS) subsidy-removal policy -
1. Inflation and hardship, but we've seen the worst of those anyway
2.
Low local refining capacity means we still import fuel with basically
the little money we've got from exporting crude oil and will remain poor
unless we change things.
On the other hand, some would argue that
3. We should have done this a long time ago.
The federal government should now end the currency subsidy. The
dollar is priced at about 350 Naira, even if the official rate remains under N200.
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