The Chief Executive Officer of Ghana’s downstream petroleum regulator, National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Hassan Tampuli says calls by some interest groups including the opposition NDC for the government to reduce prices of petroleum products is a clear indication of their ignorance of the current deregulation policy in the sector.
According to him, those calls are misplaced, premature and smack of cheap politics.
The reaction by Hassan Tampuli follows calls by consumer advocacy group, COPEC, opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and some section of Ghanaians asking the government to reduce the prices of fuel at the pumps due to the outbreak of coronavirus which has triggered the sharp fall in crude oil price to below US$40 per barrel.
“So we’ve heard calls from various interest groups; we’ve heard calls from COPEC, the Communications Director of the NDC, my good friend Sammy Gyamfi, and another group associated to the opposition, asking the government to immediately reduce prices of petroleum products. I think that, that call clearly sends the signal that our good friends in the other side have not learnt anything after they lost power, because since 1st July, 2015, when President John Mahama was President of the republic, we have moved from a time when the government would intervene in the pricing of petroleum products to a time where determination of price products is made by oil marketing companies,” he said.
He said the right to either increase or reduce petroleum products are determined by oil companies, yet the NDC is employing mischief to try to confuse ordinary Ghanaians in the price matrix.
“Have they asked Mr Alex Mould how things are done? And if people like Honourable Moses Asaga and Alex Mould speak, I would have been very sad but coming from Sammy Gyamfi, I think about 98 percent of the things he said were all false,” he stated.
“The key indicators are the forex rates, FOB prices, the international price, the taxes, levies and margins are the things that one has to take into accounts,” he explained.
Adding that the way of determining prices are also published in the daily newspapers to show how transparent the system has become.
Touching on when to decrease the price, Mr Tampuli observed that the second pricing window, which is March 15, could witness at least 15 percent reduction per the NPA’s calculation after the OMCs have taken their margins off.
He said for the intervention of the President of Ghana, ordinary Ghanaians would have been paying 40 percent tax levies and margins, adding that today, people pay 26 percent of those taxes, thus 14 percent reduction, denying the Ghana government of Ghc 1.2 billion for the period.
The NPA boss noted that even the NDC have acknowledged how the cedi has taken a very strong position against all the international currencies.
“So when the prices go up on the international market, Ghanaians will pay accordingly, now that the prices are coming down, nobody is going to tell the OMC’s or the NPA or the government that the prices should come down. It will come down naturally,” he stressed.
Source: www.energynewsafrica.com