The ongoing crisis between Russia and Ukraine has led to the increase of Value Added Tax (VAT) on liquefied petroleum GAS (LPG) leading to an increase in prices.
Some companies like Rubis Energy Kenya made a review on it’s retail prices whereby they increased the refilling price of a 13kg cylinder by lmost ksh250.
Before VAT, the dealer used to charge Ksh2, 684 per 13kg cylinder. According to the firm, VAT has pushed the price to Ksh3, 113 but for the consumers, they’ll have to refill the same cylinder at Ksh3, 340 which started today.
The 6kg cylinder was being refilled at ksh1, 243 by the consumers before VAT. As from today the same cylinder will be refilled at ksh1, 560 from Ksh1, 441.
For those consumers using 35 kilogramme cylinders, they will have to pay Ksh 600 more whereby the price was increased from ksh8, 191 to ksh8, 760.
As compared to January last year, the prices have increased to over 50 per cent which is equivalent to ksh1, 000 more. This has seen the VAT to go high three times from the expected percentage which was introduced by the government on liquefied petroleum gas.
As per yesterday, other dealers had reviewed their prices silently whereby the 13kg cylinder was now retailing at Ksh3,200.
Among the dealers that are registered for Kenya’s LPG business are, TOTAL, Vivo, Rubis, Oil Libya and Africa Gas and Oil (AGOL) dealing with proto gas.
According to the dealers, cooking gas prices are not controlled like the ones for petrol, diesel and kerosene.
There is fear of far-reaching for the world’s economy since Russia is the world’s second largest producer of natural gas as well as it is the world’s largest oil producing countries.
According to the sources, Russia has been limiting Europe in terms of gas supplies since it has been disrupting the gas supply in order to leverage the role of being a major energy supply to Europe.
Allan Chege who is the energy expert told the consumers to prepare for hard times ahead since the demand for petroleum products have gone higher.
With these, the cost of living is likely to go higher since the fuel prices are likely to escalate.
