PSRL: Suspension of levy on petroleum products extended for one more month
President Akufo-Addo has approved the extension of the Price and Stabilization Recovery Levy [PSRL] on petroleum products for an additional month.
This is per the request of both the Finance and Energy Ministries.
The move by the President is to help reduce the marginal increase in the prices of petroleum products that took effect over the weekend – from January 1, 2022.
But for the extension of the Price and Stabilization Recovery Levy [PSRL] which ended on December 31, 2021, available data suggests that diesel should have gone up by over 4% and petrol by 3% per liter.
However, the extension of the PSRL saw diesel and petrol increase by 2.42% and 2.12% per liter respectively.
Originally, the stabilization levy placed 16 pesewas and 14 pesewas on petrol and diesel in the price build up of the petroleum products.
The request for the extension of the PSRL first came from the National Petroleum Authority to the Energy and Finance Ministries before it was taken to the President for the emergency approval.
Despite the extension of the suspension of levy, concerns have been raised about its sustainability seeing that crude prices continue to go up on the international market, as well as the revenue loss to the state and the real impact on consumers in terms of cushioning them.
Read: GRA begins implementation of scrapped benchmark values on 43 items on Jan. 4
Meanwhile, energy think tank, the Institute for Energy Security [IES] has projected that there is an expectation of a light increase in petroleum prices in the first pricing-window of January 2022.
IES forecasted at least 18 pesewas presenting a 2.8% increase in fuel prices starting January 1, 2022.
The depreciation of the cedi among others, the IES asserts, are the reasons accompanying the slight increments in the price of petroleum products.
A research analyst at IES, Fritz Moses said “we should expect that going into 2022, we will see a rise in petrol prices and diesel prices at the various pumps in Ghana.
“Now we expect an addition of about 18 pesewas to the current prices that we see at the various pumps.
“However this increment in prices is influenced by the reintroduction of the price regulations levy of about 16 pesewas on petrol and 14 pesewas on diesel.
“Aside that too we have seen an uptake in price on international markets where for the Brent crude, the oil prices rise by 8.18% and also for the various finished product that is both petrol and diesel.
“We saw for petrol prices rise by some 3.25% from the previous price $685.68 per metric tonne to the current price of $707.95 per metric tonne.”
