[ad_1]
The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has asked government to reduce prices of petroleum products.
The increase, which took effect from January 1, 2016, has caused a public outcry, with the price of petrol increasing from GH¢12 to over GH¢15 a gallon.
NPP, in a statement, released by its Communications Director, Nana Akomea, indicated that “the 27 percent increase is completely unjustified.”
It said “the poor consumer does not get the well-deserved relief in petrol price,” adding that they were being punished by the government with higher fuel prices.
“Over the last month or so, the NDC government has imposed at once, a 60 percent increase in tariffs for electricity, a 67 percent rise in water tariffs and a 27 percent rise in petrol price on the long suffering Ghanaian.”
The increases, in the opinion of the NPP, “show a callous, wicked, insensitive and lazy government which often resorts to taxing poor Ghanaian consumer.”
The NPP explained that “the effect of the petrol price increase has been passed on without any cushion to the Ghanaian consumer.”
“By the operation of the automatic petrol adjustment formula, petrol should have been selling at about GH¢9 per gallon considering the sharp fall in crude oil prices on the international market, which has resulted in the fall of petrol prices globally except Ghana.
Deception
Government announced that the price of petroleum products would be automatically adjusted following the introduction of the automatic price adjustment formula. However, it has chosen to increase the price of petroleum prices on the domestic market without any reason.
The Ministry of Finance only received approval for a 5 percent and a 2.9 percent increase in the prices of petrol and diesel, which took effect from Sunday, January 3, 2016.
Fuel prices at the pumps have gone up by between 22 percent and 27 percent following the passage of the Energy Sector Levy (ESL) by Parliament in December 2015.
The price of LPG also went up by about 18 percent.
A report by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Finance however revealed that Parliament approved a 5.18 percent increase in the price of petrol, 2.90 percent for Gas Oil and 1.74 percent for LPG.
This information was captured in the report by the Committee on the Energy Sector Levies Bill 2015.
Meanwhile, Senyo Horsi, CEO of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors, at a press conference, said taxes on fuel went up by 20 percent and not 5 percent.
BY Melvin Tarlue
[ad_2]