To avert imminent hike in the prices of the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) petrol and gas, the Natural Oil and Gas Suppliers Association of Nigeria (NOGASA) has called on the Federal Government to suspend the recently introduced 7.5% Value Added Tax imposed on the Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) also known as diesel.
It said most of the trucks which convey the fuels from depots to stations are powered by diesel also fuels the cost of petrol.
The association’s National President, Mr Benneth Korie, who made the call in a briefing in Abuja, explained: “Because of the VAT that the government has imposed on diesel, today as we speak diesel is going from between N920 to N950. Diesel was like N600 before the tax on diesel.”
He advised the government to deploy the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to the upstream terminals where crude oil is loaded to collect the tax.
He insisted that the FIRS must give the downstream sector a tax holiday because the operators are already losing their capital.
The NOGASA boss said: “We are suffering too much. We are losing money on daily basis. That is what we do. We borrowed money from the banks and some of us cannot pay again.
“We are in trouble. So there is a need that the government comes into this matter urgently, otherwise we will have problem.”
Asked to confirm whether there will be PMS price hike, he said: “Definitely the price of PMS will go up in as much as dollars price goes up. If you are exchanging $1 for N950, it will go up.”
Korie could however not confirm how much the petrol could sell when it increases.
