By Daily Revelation Editor
The unprovoked aggression unleashed by the United States of America (USA) and Israel in their war of choice against Iran may seem far off but is actually very near.
We say so because that war of choice is speaking into the everyday life of Zambians and the citizens of the global, given the instability unleashed on the Gulf region, an area that provides majority of the global oils. That is one region also which allows for the passage of major commodities such as fertilizer and gas through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran says it has shut to the US, Israel and some of their allies.
During that ongoing conflict, oil prices have rose sharply to US$115 per barrel as of yesterday, after Israeli and US strikes on Iranian oil facilities attracted retaliatory strikes from Iran on other gulf countries such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. To show the magnitude of the increment, just recently at the beginning of this month when the Energy Regulation Board (ERB) announced a price reduction in fuel, petrol was trading at $70.32 per barrel and diesel at $84.94 per barrel. Actually, these prices represented a hike of around 4 percent from the previous month. The appreciation of the Kwacha against the US Dollar somehow acted as a stabilising factor, leading to a reduction in the price of the commodities by a few Kwachas.
However, we doubt whether the pricing will remain the same, especially if the war subsists into next month, which seems likely as of now. This is so because the war is trending towards escalation in that Israel insists of killing Iranian leaders, while the US is sending more service members into the region. Iran on the other hand is retaliating ferocious, contrary to Donald Trump’s claims that the Israelis and Americans have completely decimated the Iranian Army. Iran has also insisted on its maximalists aims that the war should end in such a manner that those who launched it should never contemplate attacking again. They are also stressing that the architecture governing the Strait of Hormuz can ever remain the same after the war.
The more the war escalates in that region the worse the global situation is likely to get. It therefore, means there is likely to be a negation on the reductions in fuel prices Zambians have received in the recent few months. With the likely incremenet in prices, the cost of living will also escalate correspondingly, thereby making life more unbearable for the Zambian masses.
The government should therefore work towards finding ways to ameliorate some of the impact coming from that war. There are several instruments they could apply to achieve that including touching a little bit on taxation governing the importation of some of the goods coming into the country. They could also introduce temporary subsidies from the reserves to alleviate some of the fall out from that conflict.
In saying, so we are alive to the fact that those proposals and the others government could conjure up may not be the magic formula. However, the issue here is about putting in the very best they can to shield Zambians from some of the shocks.
Related
By Daily Revelation Editor
The unprovoked aggression unleashed by the United States of America (USA) and Israel in their war of choice against Iran may seem far off but is actually very near.
We say so because that war of choice is speaking into the everyday life of Zambians and the citizens of the global, given the instability unleashed on the Gulf region, an area that provides majority of the global oils. That is one region also which allows for the passage of major commodities such as fertilizer and gas through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran says it has shut to the US, Israel and some of their allies.
During that ongoing conflict, oil prices have rose sharply to US$115 per barrel as of yesterday, after Israeli and US strikes on Iranian oil facilities attracted retaliatory strikes from Iran on other gulf countries such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. To show the magnitude of the increment, just recently at the beginning of this month when the Energy Regulation Board (ERB) announced a price reduction in fuel, petrol was trading at $70.32 per barrel and diesel at $84.94 per barrel. Actually, these prices represented a hike of around 4 percent from the previous month. The appreciation of the Kwacha against the US Dollar somehow acted as a stabilising factor, leading to a reduction in the price of the commodities by a few Kwachas.
However, we doubt whether the pricing will remain the same, especially if the war subsists into next month, which seems likely as of now. This is so because the war is trending towards escalation in that Israel insists of killing Iranian leaders, while the US is sending more service members into the region. Iran on the other hand is retaliating ferocious, contrary to Donald Trump’s claims that the Israelis and Americans have completely decimated the Iranian Army. Iran has also insisted on its maximalists aims that the war should end in such a manner that those who launched it should never contemplate attacking again. They are also stressing that the architecture governing the Strait of Hormuz can ever remain the same after the war.
The more the war escalates in that region the worse the global situation is likely to get. It therefore, means there is likely to be a negation on the reductions in fuel prices Zambians have received in the recent few months. With the likely incremenet in prices, the cost of living will also escalate correspondingly, thereby making life more unbearable for the Zambian masses.
The government should therefore work towards finding ways to ameliorate some of the impact coming from that war. There are several instruments they could apply to achieve that including touching a little bit on taxation governing the importation of some of the goods coming into the country. They could also introduce temporary subsidies from the reserves to alleviate some of the fall out from that conflict.
In saying, so we are alive to the fact that those proposals and the others government could conjure up may not be the magic formula. However, the issue here is about putting in the very best they can to shield Zambians from some of the shocks.
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