7th November, 2019
Marketers of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), under the aegis of the Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM), raised an alarm over the increased hike at the price of the product by 75 percent in the last two weeks.
Executive Secretary of the association, Mr. Bassey Essien, raised the alarm on the arbitrary increase in a statement on Thursday in Lagos.
According to him, the product’s price increased within a gap of five days, 20 metric tonnes of LPG which sold for N3.15 million, suddenly increased to N3.5 million and N3.9 million.
“A few hours thereafter, the price moved to N4.2 million even though the same product has been in the storage of these terminals when the price was even N3.5 million, so why the sudden upsurge,” he said.
He said the price hike would ultimately dovetail into high prices to the consumers who unfortunately are also caught up in the web of price hikes.
“At this time of the year in the past, price hikes used to be attributable to the winter season, increased demand for heating energy and international price index. This we have consistently questioned why a product in abundance in our country should become such a victim of any slightest issue occurring internationally.
“Efforts to extract the cause of the sudden and hourly price increase from the terminals have not been met with any positive response. At one of the terminals, there was an outright denial of any price increase; however, the price of LPG has been moved from N3.9 million to N4.2 million. A representative of the company insisted rather that the company had no stock.
“But when asked to explain the sudden price increase to N4.2 million when the company had no stock, he was evasive,’’ he said.