Angola is currently carrying out a gradual removal of the fuel subsidies, whose aim is to cut off State subsidies on petrol and diesel by 2025, the country’s Finance minister, Vera Daves de Sousa, said last week, in Luanda.
Speaking to different specialists (economists, jurists and sociologists) of the Angolan society, about the announcement of the partial cut of subsidies on gasoline, the minister said that, at the end of 2025, petrol and diesel will be commercialised at the real market price.
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With that, until 2025, the real price of gasoline, which as of midnight of June 2 would rise from 160 to 300 kwanzas/litre, will go to 530 kwanza, without counting on any State subsidy.
According to the minister, the partial cut in the subsidy on the price of petrol will allow the State to save 400 billion kwanzas this year, representing a 40 percent weight in fuel subsidies.
However, she went on to say, the process of withdrawing fuel subsidies “does not include butane or cooking gas or kerosene,”.
Until December 2022, market prices were recorded at 452%, 578%, 202% and 279% above the fixed prices, respectively for LPG (cooking gas), kerosene, petrol and diesel, with the total value of the subsidies during the period that goes from 2020 to 2022 reaching roughly 3.73 trillion kwanzas.
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During the meeting with the members of the government, several specialists agreed with the gradual withdrawal of the fuel subsidy, however, defended greater transparency and quality expenditure with the money to be collected as a result of this measure.
The announcement of the partial withdrawal of fuel subsidies comes seven years after the last increase in the prices of these oil by-products in 2016.
