Fuel Price Shocker
Mbongeni Mguni | Tuesday December 21, 2021 06:00
According to the release: * Retail pump price of unleaded petrol 93 will increase by P1.60 per litre; *Retail pump price of unleaded petrol 95 will increase by P1.65 per litre; *Retail pump price of diesel 50ppm will increase by P1.75 per litre BERA officials said the latest increase was due to large debts that government has been accumulating to oil companies as a result of not passing on increases in international fuel prices.
Previous pump price increases had not helped as global oil prices kept rising. "The accrued unit rates under recoveries (difference between the actual cost of product and pump price) were never cleared by the price increase because international oil prices have generally been increasing," BERA officials said in a statement. "This has led to the increase of the cumulative debt between government and oil companies. "Therefore, there is need for regular price adjustments to manage unit rates and the cumulative debt to oil companies." Fuel pump prices were previously increased in February, March, July and October, pushing inflation up and mounting pressure on consumers.
Inflation, which is the rate of increase in the prices of goods and services, has been trending at nine-year high since July. Bank of Botswana expects inflation to return to the three to six percent target range in the third quarter of next year.