EDITORIAL: After the Increase, Think of Us Too!

It is possible that by the time this editorial is out, the National Petroleum Tender Board would have announced new prices for petroleum products.

As expected we will be paying higher, not lower than what we are currently paying. ADM has speculated that it could be as high as C32,000.00 per gallon of "Super" petrol.

Whether slightly higher or slightly lower than our speculation, it would still be a hike. We are all resigned to that fact but hope that the rewards for swallowing the bitter pill would in the end cancel out the initial bitterness.

We are also aware that the government would announce a package of mitigation for workers, but these are the unionized workers mainly in the formal sector and especially under government employment.

There would be many small companies like Doodle Publishers Ltd., the publishers of ADM, which would be hit badly and may go under if newsprint, printing and other costs associated with the newspaper industry go up.

Already we are smarting from the myopia of a culture that feeds only one newspaper with advertisement. The government, in whose interest a plural media must survive, itself seems to have lost focus on how to empower us with some share of government advertising.

So a good 98% of the private newspapers can best be describes as in distress. We would therefore be at the painful receiving end of the hike in price of petroleum products.

We do not intend to mope and whinge about in this very important national sacrifice, but wish to call the attention of the government and other interested parties that as the new prices take hold, some of us could just be strangled out of business.

This is a reality we cannot and should not gloss over so after the increases, think of us too