More crisis for manufacturers as consumer price for diesel jumps by 5.99%
Strong indications have emerged revealing that the organized private sector operators and mainly production entities in the economy will continue to spend more in powering their power generating sets as the average price paid for automotive gas oil (AGO), otherwise called diesel has increased by 5.99 per cent year-on-year to N207.98 in August 2018.
The commodity also saw a rise in price by 1.79 per cent on a month-on-month basis from to N204.32 in July 2018.
Details gathered by Business Hilights show that states with the highest average price of diesel were Borno (N242.86), Taraba (N231.67) and Sokoto (N228.33) while those with the lowest average price were Ebonyi (N195), Adamawa (N185) and Nasarawa (N180).
According to figures obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) latest report, the North-West had an average diesel price of N212.37 for August, North-East, North-Central, South-West, South-South and South-East had average price of N214.57, N203.90, N209.29, N201.30, and N206.12 respectively.
Even though the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), had last year, given details of how it was able to achieve a 42 per cent crash in diesel pump price nationwide within six months, it seems the success has reversed.
Recently at the Annual General meeting of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Abuja Chapter, the group raised fear of failing ease of doing business on account of unpredictable cost of energy both on public power and even generators.
The concern further forced the MAN to maintain its stand against the federal government signing and ratifying the AfCTFA which would have exposed Nigerian manufacturers to hostile competition from African economies where the ease of doing business and power cost salutary to manufacturing activities.
