CS Wandayi: Government interventions have softened the impact of rising fuel prices

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]You know, as a matter of fact, uh the fuel uh situation is essentially a global situation.

[00:00:13]Uh whereas, there are other factors that no government can ever control.

[00:00:22]As a country, uh we have been able to make very strategic interventions.

[00:00:28]Some very strategic interventions.

[00:00:31]You know, uh that we were able to reduce the VAT uh on fuel uh by a whopping 50% from 16% to 8%.

[00:00:46]In addition, we have been able to uh subsidize the price of fuel since the crisis in the Middle East uh erupted.

[00:00:58]Uh in the last two cycles alone, two pricing cycles, from April to to May, uh the government uh has utilized uh about to 13.9 billion shillings as part of the subsidy from the petroleum development levy to mitigate the uh cost of fuel.

[00:01:35]If it were not for those interventions, those two interventions, reducing VAT on fuel and uh subsidizing fuel from the PDL, uh the prices would have been very, very high.

[00:01:50]Very, very high.

[00:01:52]And this uh we must credit to the president himself for providing the needed leadership.

[00:02:01]But more importantly, what most Kenyans don't seem to understand is that under the the government-to-government fuel importation framework, there's a component of the landing cost of fuel that is fixed.

[00:02:19]That component is premium and freight, which in the recent past has increased exponentially to about 250 to 300 US dollars per ton.

[00:02:35]That component of premium and freight and freight under the G-to-G framework, premium and freight is fixed and even when prices were increasing globally, that component remained and still remains fixed.

[00:02:51]For instance, for diesel, it is only with $8 per ton.

[00:02:56]For petrol, it is $84 per ton. And for jet A1 fuel, it is $97 per ton.

[00:03:05]Can you compare that with 250 to 300 per ton that is currently the world's uh uh uh rates?

[00:03:14]So, that tells you that the G-to-G has really played a very, very significant role in mitigating the cost of fuel for Kenyan consumers.

[00:03:26]And it is the way to go. We must thank our G-to-G partners, especially the international oil companies. They have no queues not just in Nairobi, they have no queues everywhere else in the country.

[00:03:37]And I've said this and I want to repeat, it is because of the government-to-government fuel importation importation framework that ensured that even though the Strait of Hormuz was closed, our international oil suppliers, the three international oil companies were able to diversify their sources of oil.

[00:03:58]And therefore load in the Americas, load in Europe, load from India, and load from the Red Sea region.

[00:04:07]Thereby bypassing the state of homes.

[00:04:10]That has been a godsend. Let me tell you. We don't want to talk about forgetting any particular route.

[00:04:15]We are basically saying we must remain flexible and resilient to be able to diversify our sources.

[00:04:23]And that has been guaranteed by our G2G framework.

[00:04:27]We must be able to explore any possible option in terms of sourcing of petroleum products under the G2G arrangement.