The Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), Duncan Amoah is sceptical about measures announced by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his government to cut down on the prices of petroleum products soon.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr. Duncan noted that although the President enumerated some elaborate and bold measures aimed at reviving the distressed economy, he said what was missing was how those proposed measures were going to be achieved.
“I believe the president just made a beautiful proposition. Of course, it was short of explaining the how and the timelines for which Ghanaians should expect anything to happen. Let me quickly put on record also that one of the expectations we had of the address was some immediate reliefs coming from government.”
COPEC had earlier predicted a 10 percent increase in prices of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) with petrol and diesel likely to see an increase between GHS 3 and GHS 8 effective Tuesday, November 1, 2022.
In explaining why it is impossible to cut down the prices of petroleum products at the moment, Mr. Amoah explained that there are external factors including import duties and some local nuisance taxes that, if not properly addressed, will be impossible to have petroleum prices reduced anytime soon.
“As you are aware, beyond the international market or [Free On Board] FOB price that the product will come with, you also have governmental taxes. Some of them are the Special Petroleum Tax, the Price Stabilization Levy and Recovery Levy. One of the taxes that we probably term the Bola Tax is the Sanitation and Pollution Levy.”
“It was our hope that due to where Ghanaians find ourselves currently and the fact that there is so much pressure on even the GPRTU and other public transport operators, the president was going to give us some relief per the address. Unfortunately, he only spoke broadly of attempts by the government to get regular, reliable and affordable products, the how, we are not aware, but if that also could have anything to do with one of the policy propositions we have urged government to consider all the while, is the panel arrangement that says you don’t continue to allow fragmented importations in times like this.”
He also admonished government to collaborate with oil traders to find local solutions to the price hikes.
“If you aggregated these volumes, and you decide to have the oil traders sit at a roundtable, chances are that you may attract certain economies of scale due to the fact that you have given these volumes that you probably need per month, per quarter to a trader so once they have an assured market, economies of scales might set in. Secondly, the artificial demand pressure on the dollar could also ease a bit.”
