The Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA), Dr Joe Abbey, has advised politicians not to make the pricing of petroleum products political issues on their campaign platforms.
Throwing some light on the recent increase in the prices of petroleum products, Dr Abbey said oil and its pricing were regulated by factors beyond the control of politicians in Ghana.
“To the extent that the country has no control over crude oil pricing, it will be in the national interest not to feature it in campaign promises,”he said.
He declared that “the important lesson here” is to avoid electoral promises that could prove difficult to deliver because of the danger posed by unfulfilled promises.
“It is important to stress that such promises are not new or peculiar to any one political party. Indeed, our economic-history points to the politically destabilising consequences that have resulted from the failure to make good electoral promises,” he added.
Dr Abbey noted that the military coups that occurred in the 1970s and the early 1980s were the result of failed campaign promises and said they produced six different political regimes in the 10-year period from 1971 to 1981, with dire economic consequences.
He said in October 2009, a barrel of crude oil was sold on the world commodity market at an average price of US$75 and that the price as of January 2011 was around US$90 a barrel.
He said that worked to an increase of 20 per cent and contributed 66.7 per cent to the new price build up.
Again, in October 2009, the dollar was bought at GH¢1.45 but it currently stood at GH¢1.48, a nominal depreciation of 2.07 per cent, accounting for 6.9 per cent of the new price build up.
He said the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) levy also constituted about 7.5 per cent of the cost build up, while the margins for marketers, distributors and dealers went up by four per cent, which contributed 13 per cent to the new price build up.
Other build-up cost, he said, went up by an average of 5.5 per cent of the new price.
Dr Abbey called on the government to be transparent in all its dealings with Ghanaians and cited the lack of transparency and accountability as the cause of the “deterioration of fiscal management” in the 2006-2008 period.