MONROVIA, Montserrado – Liberia’s Deputy Minister for Commerce, Cyril Allen Jr., has claimed that the country currently has the lowest petroleum prices in the Economic Community of West African States.

“The sharp fall in the prices of petroleum products on the world market has brought a great deal of relief to the people of the sub-region,” Allen said.

The Deputy Commerce Minister made the disclosure recently on the Capitol Breakfast Show.

Accordingly, he said the fall in the prices should greatly reduce the cost of transportation and other necessities of life.

“The reduction in the prices of petroleum products on the Liberian market is largely due to the price mechanism put in place by the Liberian government,” he said.

Allen noted that petroleum prices have dropped 34 percent globally in the last two months, while “petroleum prices in Liberia have also dropped to 41 percent.”

“The prices of petroleum products in Liberia went down from US$3.50 to US$2.91,” he said, although that percentage in drop did not equal the 41 percent he mentioned.

Allen said the global average of gas prices was US$3.66 per gallon whereas in Liberia, a gallon the gasoline was sold for US$2.91.

The prices per liter and gallon of gasoline in selected countries in West Africa as of January 11, 2016. Source: Ministry of Commerce

While Allen is correct that the price of petroleum in Liberia is one of the lowest in the region, fellow ECOWAS member and oil-producing state Nigeria has a much lower average price of petroleum products. In September 2015, gas sold for US$1.66 per gallon in Nigeria.

Recently, the Deputy Information Minister for Public Affairs, Isaac Jackson, told The Bush Chicken that the government was working on reducing the price of petroleum products, in line with the fall in global oil prices.

He, however, doubted that the reduction in oil prices on the Liberian market would trickle down to ordinary Liberians.

Isaac Jackson, Deputy Information Minister for Public Affairs. Photo: Zeze Ballah

“A few groups of disingenuous taxi drivers who even with the minimal price of gasoline on the local market still want to keep the price of transport very high,” Jackson said then.

Even as global petroleum prices have dropped, the Liberian government has tended to be slow to reduce the prices accordingly, and Liberian petroleum prices have not fallen by the same percentage points as have worldwide prices.

Information from the website of the Liberia Petroleum Refinery Company shows that the price of gas as of Feb. 8, 2016, is US$2.81 per gallon.

Featured photo by Zeze Ballah