Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), Duncan Amoah has hinted prices of petroleum products may continue to rise for the next two to three months. Oil Marketing companies over the weekend made upward adjustments to the prices of fuel at the pumps of between 3% to 8%. The increase, analysts say, is a combination of the rise in crude prices on the international market and the fall of the cedi against the dollar in the past few weeks as well as some adjustments in levies and margins by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA).
But Duncan Amoah warns projections indicate the upward trend will continue. “Projections out there as far as international market pricing is concerned don’t look as though prices are going to cool off anytime soon. So, we may be here for about two, three months before any cooling would happen,” he told Joshua Nana Kwame Ayira on Starr Today, on Friday 16th February 2024.
Duncan Amoah charged the Bank of Ghana to tackle the Cedi’s decline to help bring some stability to fuel prices. “That is why I’ve indicated that the Bank of Ghana would need to sit and position so that the local current does not suffer any ceded battery. If you were stable, whatever the international market pricing throws at us would be something minimal. But if the city also gets wobbly and dances a very bad dance, then we could be in for some additional increments by March, by April, by May.”
“But that again would depend on whether the bank of Ghana goes to sleep or it wakes up to his fiduciary responsibility of ensuring that the currency is stable”, he cautioned. Duncan Amoah has also questioned the basis upon which the NPA increased the BOST margin. Despite describing the adjustments in some other levies as justifiable, Duncan Amoah says the 3 pesewas addition to the margin of a profitable company like BOST is perplexing.
“The only challenge we’ve had with what the recent move has been simply has to do with the BOST margin that has gone up. We are asking if indeed BOST as a profit-making entity that has declared profit for the past three years, will still need to collect more from the public. That we continue to disagree with,” he added.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/Edem Kojo
