Foreign exchange rate reason for high diesel, aviation fuel cost, says Sylva
Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Slyva says the high cost of diesel and aviation fuel in the country is caused by the foreign exchange rate.
He made this known in an interview on Thursday.
According to him, but the prices of both products are deregulated, there is nothing the Federal Government can do to intervene in the rising prices.
“So, it is not within the purview of the government to fix the prices at all. And of course, the actual issue is also the foreign exchange. People cannot access foreign exchange to import this. For the time being, NNPC has been the main importer of this product but what we are trying to do is to democratise the importation so that the aviation fuel users themselves should be able to access foreign exchange and be able to import this product.
“It’s not a supply issue at all. It’s just a global problem. You know that the problem in Ukraine and Russia has actually exacerbated the rise in prices; it is not in Nigeria alone. The high cost of diesel is also because of the same reason and these are not subsidised commodities, they are deregulated commodities so actually, it is not within the purview of the government to intervene in the price”, he said.
