Consumers of Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) should be prepared for the worst as the price of the domestic commodity is likely to hit GHc10 per kilogramme in the next couple of months.
The Vice President of the LPG Marketers Association, Gabriel Kumi, argued that prices of LPG will continue to go up on the local market every two weeks if gas prices continue to soar on the global market.
“We should brace ourselves to pay more for LPG every two weeks. And as prices are going up, consumption will decline,” Mr Kumi told energynewsafrica.com in a telephone conversation.
Currently, a kilo of LPG is sold at between Gh¢8.50 and Gh¢8.70.
This rising cost of LPG, according to the LPG Marketers Association, has reduced the consumption of the commodity.
Mr Gabriel Kumi, in an interview on Accra- based Joy FM and monitored by energynewafrica.com, said about 60 per cent of people who live in urban areas are unable to fill their cylinders to the brim when they visit LPG stations because of hikes in prices.
He said in rural areas, the percentage of people who are unable to fill their cylinders ranges between 80 per cent and 90 per cent.
“We are going down in terms of consumption of LPG in Ghana. One would expect that as your population is growing, your consumption rate is growing too, but we’re stagnating. We are just hovering around 28,000 29,000 metric tonnes for the past 3 years,” he explained.
He blamed the development on various taxes imposed on the product.
“The average household cylinder [cost] is now about between GH¢120 to GH¢125. Ask yourself: if the ordinary Ghanaian, who is taking home GH¢500, go to the LPG outlet and fill their cylinders? How do you expect an average worker to use about 20 per cent of their monthly salary to go and buy just LPG?” he said.
The restored PSRL is 16 pesewas per litre on petrol, 14 pesewas per litre on diesel and 14 pesewas per kilogram on LPG.
Given the prices, he said they would further contribute to a decrease in the consumption of the product.
“The irony of the situation is that the government has set itself an objective to increase the consumption of the product from the current 25 per cent penetration level to 50 per cent by the end of 2030, [but] people cannot even afford the product. Now the product is being bought in tots,” he said.
He mentioned that people buy as low as GH¢5, adding that that defeats the purpose of the government’s agenda to make the product accessible to many.
“How would somebody carrying such a metal walk to an LPG station and buy GHc20 to GHc30 cedis and go back home? It’s a matter of affordability,” he said.
He warned that if urgent steps aimed at subsiding the price of the product are not taken, the country could suffer dire consequences.
He, thus, called on the government to remove all taxes imposed on LPG.
“LPG is a very sensitive product to price, so any pesewa increase in the price of LPG goes a long way to reduce the consumption of the product.
“LPG must be made tax-free so that we save our environment and Ghana,” he said.
“We appreciate the fact that the government needs money, but we’ve always said that the benefit this country stands to gain by pushing up the consumption of LPG outweighs the benefit we get from taxes,” he added.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
