A former Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Ghana’s leading oil marketing company, GOIL, Patrick Akorli believes it’s about time the West African nation abolished all subsidies on all petroleum products.
He said the illegal activities by some players in the downstream sector make it difficult for actual consumers to benefit from the subsidies.
In his view, the government should allow consumers to pay for the right price of fuel and rather channel the subsidies into development projects to benefit the masses.
Mr Akorli said this at the launch of Petroleum Downstream Product Marking Scheme Phase II in Accra, capital of Ghana
“Today, premix is being sold at Ghc1.50 pesewas whereas the right price should have been GHc5.00. There are too much incentives for people to do the wrong thing, so why don’t you take the subsidies away and use that thing to do things that benefit the people?” he said.
He tasked the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to ensure that subsidies are removed to safeguard the interest of consumers.
It would be recalled that the former Finance Minister, Seth Terkper warned the Akufo-Addo administration over the risk of huge subsidy debts and its potential to hurt the economy and collapse the energy sector of the economy.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
