The price of fuel is likely to go up if government’s proposal to impose a tax on fuel products is upheld by Parliament.
In a raft of new tax proposals, government wants to levy Shs 1550 per litre on gasoline according to the Excise Duty Amendment Bill 2024 that was tabled before Parliament by the Ministry of Finance.
Currently a litre of petrol costs Shs 5390 at most Shell Petrol stations. With the proposed levy it will shoot to more than Shs 7000 per litre which could have a snowball effect on the price opf other essential items like local food, which is normally transported from rural areas to urban markets.
In the same vein, government wants to impose an excise duty tax rate of Shs500 per 50Kgs of Cement, adhesives, grout, white cement or lime.
This move will likely increase prices of these products on the market. Already a bag cement costs between 33,000 and 36,000. This could hurt those in the building sector which has aleardy been hit hard by increase in price of other outputs like iron bars.
