We’ve reduced diesel price to bring down inflation – Dangote

We’ve reduced diesel price to bring down inflation – Dangote

President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has said with the cost of diesel from his company, Dangote Refinery, dropping to N1,200 from N1,650, inflation rate in Nigeria will drop.

Nigeria’s annual inflation rate rose to 31.70 per cent in February from 29.90 per cent in January, according to the last report on this issue by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Dangote spoke on Wednesday with journalists after paying an Eid-el-Fitr visit to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his Lagos home.

He said the Dangote Refinery had been selling diesel at N1,200 per litre as against the market price of N1,650 – N1,700.

He also noted the improvement in the naira to dollar exchange rate was already having a positive impact, with the price of locally-produced goods dropping as businesses paid less for diesel.

Dangote said, “I believe that we are on the right track. Nigerians have been patient and I also believe that a lot of goodies will now come through.

“There’s quite a lot of improvement because if you look at it, one of the major issues that we’ve had was the Naira devaluation that had gone very aggressively up to about N1,900.

“But right now, we’re back to almost N1,250 and N1,300, which is a good reprieve.

“You can see quite a lot of things went up. For example, something that we produce locally like flour – people charged more. Why? Because they were paying very high diesel prices.

“What we did, for example, in our refinery, is to sell diesel at about N1,200 as against N1,650 and I’m sure as we go along, things will continue to improve quite a lot.

“It’s a lot of impact. The price for a litre of diesel has been cut by almost one-third to N1,200.

“Even though the crude prices are going up, I believe people will not get it much higher than what it is today at N1,200.

“It might go a little bit lower, but that can help quite a lot because if you were transporting locally-produced goods, such as rice and other stuff at N1,650, and now you are paying one-third of that amount at N1,200, it’s a lot of difference.

“That can help to bring inflation down. And I’m sure when the inflation figures are out for the next month, there’ll be quite a lot of improvement in the rate.

“So, one step at a time. And I’m sure the government is working round the clock to make sure that things get much better. It’s in the interest of everybody.”