Kenya Plans to Face Out Kerosene Through Increased Taxes

Households will be forced to pay more for Kerosene if the move to raise tax for the commodity is implemented.

This follows a suggestion from Energy and Regulation Commission (ERC) Director General Pavel Oimeke that the government considers increasing kerosene prices to save the export market from cartels who have dominated it.

According to Pavel Oimeke, several unscrupulous cartels in the market mix kerosene with diesel resulting to 27 million liters of kerosene going into vehicles thus causing damage.

In a move to deal with the cartels, ERC notes that increasing kerosene taxes to make it higher as diesel will help do away with the unscrupulous moves in place.

Oimeke further disclosed that currently, the country consumes about 33 million liters of kerosene per month which is much higher than the expected not more than 5 million liters of kerosene per month.

He said that the issue can only be addressed if the cartels are dealt with by increasing the tax imposed on kerosene to save the export market.

“Our appeal to the government is to consider increasing the taxes of kerosene to be at the high level with diesel,” said Oimeke.

ERC is working on seeing that the households move from using kerosene to other alternative sources of fuel, in a move to face to face out the commodity.

COFEK has, in turn, urged ERC to ensure that there is a proportional transition on the issue of facing out kerosene to ensure that there is alternative to avert adverse effects on the consumers