Deregulation of petroleum has rather increased prices of fuel- COPEC
Executive Secretary of Chamber of Petroleum Consumers [COPEC], Duncan Amoah, says deregulation of petroleum has rather increased the prices of fuel and has brought hardships in the lives of Ghanaians especially fuel consumers.
Speaking in an interview, M Amoah noted, “You see, there is something that I am still contemplating whether this whole deregulation exercise is even benefitting the ordinary Ghanaian. So you have two stations, let’s say Duncan and Kudus; Duncan station sells at 5.0, Kudus sells at 6.0, a driver walks to my station and pay 5.0 for fuel another pays 6.0 for fuel, yet they are charging the same fare so where is the benefit?” he quizzed.
He explained, that the taxes imposed on petroleum products during former President Kufuor’s era, was reasonable, adding that “crude prices somewhere in 2007 did hit the roof at 120, 140” but consumers were not asked to pay GHS 6 plus for petrol.
According to Mr Amoah, a lot of consideration did not go into the deregulation exercise, adding that government just took its hands off the final pricing at the pumps.
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“It was just rolled out because government was tired and was choking on the legacy debt so the most immediate solution was to leave all the marketing companies. You bring your product, you set your own prices, if you make losses, I don’t owe you anything,” he stated.
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He said government thus the former Finance Minister, Seth Terkper and current Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta used the ’back loop’ in its dealings. He also stated that they have simply grown taxes on fuel.
Duncan Amoah said forex will continue to be a problem so far as fuel importation is not managed in the country.
“Those guys would need around 400 million cedis every single month to bring in petroleum products, they would need a dollar, equivalent. So if they are converting all of that to dollar every single month, you think your cedi will survive? So the cedi will depreciate and when it does, a forex rate has to be done and added to your pump prices,” he explained.
GOIL reduces fuel price by 15 pesewas
The Ghana Oil Company (GOIL) effective Tuesday, December 7, 2021 reduced the price of fuel at its pumps by 15 pesewas.
The price reduction followed a crunch meeting between the President and the leadership of transport operators in the country at the Presidency on Monday evening.
On the back of the 15 pesewas reduction in fuel price, GOIL is now selling a litre of fuel for GHS 6.70 pesewas down from the previous price of GHS 6.85 pesewas.
The appeal to scrap the taxes on petroleum products is estimated to reduce fuel prices by 25.44 percentage points; bearing in mind that fuel prices, between January and December 2021, have witnessed an astronomical rise of 39.92 percent.
