High cost of cooking gas‘ll negatively impact environment, health, CPPE warns

Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, CPPE, has warned that with the skyrocketing price of cooking gas more Nigerians will resort to firewood and charcoal, and that will negatively impact the environment and health of the people if government fails to swiftly intervene and bring it under control. 

Executive Director, CPPE, Dr Muda Yusuf, said the lives of Nigerians heavily depend on cooking gas, which also reduce the impact of tree falling on the environment.

According to him “Once cost increases from the point of primary source of supply, it will affect the entire value chain, capacity for procurement, profit margins, and cash flow of all the operators in the sector. 

“So this is what I think has disrupted, first the flow and this is what has been responsible for the spike in this crisis because this is a very basic need for Nigerians and because again we have been talking about issues of environment, discouraging people from using firewood and charcoal.

“I think governments have to quickly step into this and see what can be done to ease either the cash flow problem or the procurement issues or the supply. If there are bottlenecks or challenges that can be dealt with that will not fundamentally disrupt or affect the fundamental policies of government with respect to these things, I think the government should do something because it’s very basic. 

He also noted that, “We have been talking about cost of living. It’s a major factor with respect to issue of cost of living, with respect to livelihoods. So this is not something we should take lightly. Government needs to respond and respond very quickly to it.”

However, according to him, the issue of price hike in cooking gas is also traceable to the ongoing United States-Iran War that has shut down the Strait of Hormuz, saying, “In this skyrocketing price of gas has to do with the geopolitical, the prevailing geopolitical situation because anything that has to do with energy, with petroleum products has been severely impacted by the geopolitical problem in the Middle East. 

“This has reflected in all variants of energy products or petroleum products. They are talking of petrol, diesel, jet fuel, and even fertilizer, all of these things have been affected. So this is what is playing out here.”