By YusuphaJobe
The Citizens’ Alliance (CA), an opposition political party, in a recent press statement has described the announcement made by government on the fuel pump price reduction as misinformation done with intention to gain political patronage.
Last Thursday, 30th April, 2020 the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs announced a double packaged in its released statement, a relief package worth D29.1 million for Gambian students living abroad and reduction of domestic retail fuel prices throughout the country with immediate effect.
As stated in the release statement the reduced pump prices stand at Petrol D40 per litre from D49.36, Diesel D43 per litre from D50.04 and Kerosene D30 per litre from D41. 35.
Commenting on this through a press release, one of the opposition parties, Citizens’ Alliance has stated that “CA welcomes the recent announcement on the reduction of fuel prices by the government as it will alleviate some economic hardships facing the people.
However, we would like to point out that government claiming that the reduction of fuel prices is part of the corona virus relief effort is false and an attempt to deliberately mislead the public for a political gain.”
“The reduction in fuel prices is due to the collapse of global oil prices in the last two months which was mainly caused by the disagreement between Russia and Saudi Arabia in early March on oil production quotas in order to stabilize global oil prices and also including collapse in demand for oil due to COVID-19 pandemic as countries initiate lockdowns that effectively brought their economies to standstill,” the release stated.
Therefore, “We find it appalling as an opposition party that the government of the Gambia is looking to score political gains from the pandemic that is causing great worry, uncertainty and pain among the poor. Instead we expect our political leaders to focus allaying the fears of a worried nation through communication to them clear plans to help cope with the pandemic,” it mentioned.
