![\"Fuel](\"http:\/\/img.ghanamma.com\/uploads\/2013\/02\/d29480176595.295.jpg\" "\\"Fuel")
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The newly announced increase in the price of petroleum products is causing anger around the country, with a number of public interest groups condemning government\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
Over the weekend, government cut critical subsidies to key petroleum products, forcing the National Petroleum Authority to announce a 20% increase in fuel prices.<\/p>\n
Opposing the price increase, ISODEC Campaign Coordinator, Dr Steve Manteaw, said it would have crippling effects on the Ghanaian economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a very bad idea and I think we need to, as a country, take a look at a number of things because what we have done today will negatively impact on the economy and we are going to roll back the progress we have made in the macro economic sphere\u2026when prices go up, workers are going to begin to agitate for wage increases and there will be a spiral impact on the rest of the economy,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n
Mr. Manteaw said: \u201cWe have gotten to where we are today because of lack of fiscal discipline. One of the things we expected government to do was to look at its own budget because this rise in fuel prices will affect government budget as well because government depends heavily on fuel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t really addressed the issues that mitigate against the exact impact therefore, government should with immediate effect look at how to mitigate the impact otherwise two or three months along the line, we are going to see a roll back of all the progress we\u2019ve made in the macro economic sphere.”<\/p>\n
The government has repeatedly explained that it needed to cut subsidies on petroleum products due to a mix of factors, including the huge budget deficit it run last year.<\/p>\n
Dr Manteaw said the blame must be laid partly at the door steps of the Mahama administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf government thought it prudent to do it, why didn\u2019t he do it before the election? Why do you wait till after the elections before you withdraw subsidies?,” he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe might have spent more during the electioneering period and this could contribute to the fiscal squeeze we are facing today\u2026..the Bank of Ghana indicates that we have a huge deficits\u2026deficits should be expected if there aren\u2019t adequate donor inflows, you are not also prudent with expenditure and there is a lot of weight and inefficiency in the system so we need to look at prudent measures to address the waste in the system rather than withdrawing subsidy and thinking the problem gets resolved.”<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
General News of Monday, 18 February 2013 Source: citi fm The newly announced increase in the price of petroleum products is causing anger around the country, with a number of public interest groups condemning government\u2019s decision.Over the weekend, government cut critical subsidies to key petroleum products, forcing the National Petroleum Authority to announce a 20% increase in fuel prices.Opposing the price increase, ISODEC Campaign Coordinator, Dr Steve Manteaw, said it would have crippling effects on the Ghanaian economy.\u201cIt is a very bad idea and I think we need to, as a country, take a look at a number of things because what we have done today will negatively impact on the economy and we are going to roll back the progress we have made in the macro economic sphere\u2026when prices go up, workers are going to begin to agitate for wage increases and there will be a spiral impact on the rest of the economy,\u201d he stated.Mr. Manteaw said: \u201cWe have gotten to where we are today because of lack of fiscal discipline. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}