THE Kenya government is considering standardising taxes across all petroleum products to check the activities of criminals substituting kerosene for diesel and petrol to take advantage of the cheap price of kerosene.
A litre of kerosene currently goes for KSh62.48 compared to KSh92.14 and KSh81.86 for petrol and diesel respectively. The government has allayed fears that the situation is causing a major problem for motorists, and also affecting the quality of exported products. The authorities plan to intensify the crackdown on such activities in Kisumu, Nakuru and Eldoret, which are major exporting routes. However, the government believes equalising taxes across all the products is likely to raise price of kerosene to a level where the act will become unprofitable.
Petrol consumption in Kenya surged by 31.5 percent year-on-year (YoY) during the first half of 2016 as motorists took advantage of lower pump prices to drive longer. Kenya consumed 787.9 million litres of petrol in the first half of 2016 against 599 million litres during the corresponding period in 2015. Consumption of diesel and LPG for cooking also increased by 23 percent and 83 percent respectively.