Consumers Seek NPA Intervention As Fuel Prices Rise

Prices of fuel have gone up at some pumps effective Tuesday, January 16, 2017.

This follows an earlier prediction by the Institute of Energy Security (IES) that prices will go up by between 3 and 5 percent.

According to the IES, the development can be attributed to the increase in crude oil prices, the performance of the cedi, among other key pointers.

The second pricing window period spans from Tuesday, January 16, 2018, till the end of the month.

Checks by Citi Business News show that a number of OMCs including Total have increased the prices of fuel at the various pumps for example with Total a liter of petrol is selling at 4 cedis 63 pesewas.

This is up from the previous 4 cedis, 49 pesewas recorded.

Goil, SO Energy and Shell are however yet to effect the price changes.

The Executive Director of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), Duncan Amoah, however, insists consumers will be overburdened by this development, thus the NPA must step in.

“Something could be done to forestall the increases as we are seeing currently but nothing so far has been done. We went around the issues and the reality is dawning on us all. Some of the OMCs I know, clearly have made some significant losses. The cedi is not doing too badly but sadly Ghanaians are being asked to pay a lot more for petrol at this time” he lamented.

He further called on the NPA to ensure stability in fuel prices.

“We believe that the special petroleum tax component on the price build-up has gotten to a point where it has to go down completely or get re-positioned altogether in order to give some sense of stability or some reduction in fuel prices to Ghanaians,” he added.

Meanwhile, Mr. Amoah warned that prices will keep escalating should government not step in soon.

“These increases have been expected over the past one week and we are quite certain that if nothing is done there will be further increases even in the coming days because as we speak, world prices have hit above the 70 dollars and that clearly has its own consequences” he explained.

This is the first time prices have gone up since the reduction in the price stabilization levy for Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and diesel was announced by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) in December last year (2017).

The price stabilization levy component for the two products has since been reduced from 10 to 3 pesewas.

Source: Citi Business