Some residents of Port Harcourt, have reacted towards the negative impact of the high costs of kerosene and cooking gas. One of the residents, Mr Jones Ile, who spoke to The Tide, yesterday expressed displeasure on how people have gone the extra length in producing adulterated kerosene in order to make profit.
“We are the fourth crude oil producer in the country and the sixth in the world but we cannot afford common kerosene.
“The kerosene is now more expensive than petrol and some people are now mixing petrol and other ingredients to make profit”, he lamented.
The supervisor of a filling station on Peter Odili Road, Mr Uchenna Nwankwo who spoke to The Tide said the rise in transportation was one of the main factors was contributing to the increase.
“Kerosene used to be N340 but now it is N440 – because the quantity we are buying from Lagos, we build transportation cost into it.
“It has a negative effect, and we are not enjoying it because the customers are complaining”, he said
Another resident, Mr Yahaya Yakubu, who is a kerosene dealer said the price of kerosene had risen by 10 per cent.
“We were buying it at N100 before but now it is N110 and the big bottle now costs N240.00.
The way we are selling is on the high side but customers accuse us of inflating the price not minding the fact that we buy at higher rate at the refineries”, he said.
He further called on the government to take necessary steps to check the trend so that the retailers and the end users do not suffer unduly.
It could be recalled that the government recently denied increasing price of petroleum products, despite the fact that kerosene, gas and even petrol prices have not been stable, whereas filling stations have been accused of tampering with their metres in order to short change consumers.