A Deputy Minister for Finance in the Akufo-Addo-administration in the Republic of Ghana, Charles Adu-Boahen has described as shocking several calls by members of the association of LPG Marketers in the country.
He said it is surprising to him that the LPG marketers are behaving the way are doing, when the government has actually maintained the price of the domestic commodity.
Vice President of the LPG Marketers Association, Gabriel Kumi, recently, indicated that if the government wanted to achieve its objective of increasing LPG consumption from 25 percent to 50 percent by 2030, then, it had to consider their request of reducing the taxes on the commodity.
“Government has no other option than to take away all the taxes and levies from the product to make it more accessible and more affordable so that the ordinary Ghanaian can use it,” he stated.
But, commenting on the issue during an interview with an Accra-based Citi FM, Mr Charles Adu-Boahen said the government has done well by maintaining the prices through the intervention by the Ministry of Energy.
“This is a big surprise to me,” he said.
According to him, “when we were looking at the ESLA increment, we intentionally left LPG out for this reason because we wanted to encourage more people to use LPG. So the Ministry of Energy recommended that we don’t touch LPG because we are trying to roll out a programme to promote LPG consumption.
“We have all this gas being produced and we need to get consumption to increase because LPG is better than firewood.”
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com