Gov’t Warned Over Fuel Prices

The government has been warned that failure to reduce fuel prices to reflect the falling crude oil price on the international market could lead to another mass demonstration in the Ashanti regional capital, Kumasi.

Members of Movement for Change (MFC), an Ashanti Region-based pressure group, who gave the warning, said more than a million protesters could hit the streets in the Garden City in protest against President Mahama and his National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration.

In a statement jointly signed by its chairman, Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare, head of operations Odeneho Kwaku Appiah, Justin Koduah Frimpong, head of communications Nana Boakye aka Nana B and head of research Moro Kabore, the MFC indicated that the protest march would be widespread if government did not meet their demand.

Protests across the country brought it close to a standstill last month, and the countdown has begun for the next demonstration to put pressure on President Mahama to heed the complaints of the citizenry and act to alleviate their plight.

One of the leading figures of MFC, Odeneho Kwaku Appiah, told DAILY GUIDE that a combination of the high fuel prices and the chronic energy crisis are crippling businesses and that that has sparked off the latest agitation by the pressure group.

The last time the Movement for Change launched such a protest, an estimated 1.5 million people marched against the government over the energy crisis.

The MFC said Ghanaians could no longer countenance the unyielding attitude of government towards calls for reduction of fuel prices in ‘these critical times of high unemployment levels and skyrocketing cost of living…’

‘We are all witnesses to how this monstrous load-shedding system continues to kill private businesses all over the country due to high operation cost as a result of the purchasing of several quantities of fuel for their generators on daily basis,’ the MFC statement noted.

According to members of the group, as a public interest organisation, they were not only adding their voices to the numerous calls, but were ready to launch massive campaigns for the downward review of petroleum prices.