Ghana’s petroleum downstream regulator, National Petroleum Authority (NPA), has reversed its earlier directive to Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) in the West African nation to increase the Bulk Oil Storage and Transport (BOST) margin on petroleum products by GHp3.00
According to a source at NPA, a Memo to reverse the decision was sent to the Oil Marketing Companies earlier today.
The BOST margin was expected to have been increased from GH¢0.03 to GH¢0.06 per litre while the Unified Petroleum Price Fund (UPPF) component saw an increase from GH¢0.01 to GH¢0.22 per litre.
But the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) kicked against the move describing it as nonsense and needless.
According to COPEC, the directive will further increase the price of petroleum products.
“This move by the NPA to slap additional levies on fuel prices at this critical point of Christmas makes a complete nonsense of the efforts by the Finance Ministry and the BOG to intervene to ensure availability of dollars at this time for petroleum importation with the view to forestalling any further increases on already neck-breaking fuel prices in the country.”
Per the directive which is expected to take effect on Monday, 16/12/2019, all Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) and LPG Marketing Companies (LPG-MCs) are to apply an upward review of a combined GH¢0.04 increase to Ghanaian pump prices.
Per the directive, the controversial BOST margin which currently stands at 3p/litre or some cumulative 10,200,000.00 from consumers is to be increased by 100% to a new rate of 6p/ litre or some cumulative 20,400,000.00 from consumers based on current conservative estimates of some 340 million litres of fuel consumed monthly, the UPPF component also gets increased by 4.7% or 1p from the current 21p/litre to 22p/ litre or some 3,420,000.00 cumulative monthly.
Fuel prices across pumps within the country went up by some 1% just last week following from days of a sharp depreciation of the cedi and is believed could go up further in the next window starting tomorrow as the cedi continues to depreciate.
In a statement reacting to the news of NPA reversing its earlier decision, Mr Duncan Amoah, Executive Secretary of COPEC, said information from official sources indicated that President of the Republic and the Chief of Staff stepped in to direct the NPA to immediately reverse their decision.
“COPEC Ghana will like to use this opportunity to thank the President and his chief of Staff for the swift intervention in averting further hardships on Ghanaian petroleum consumers,” the statement said.
