Petrol prices go up

The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) has announced an upward adjustment of prices of petroleum products with retrospective from yesterday, July 17.

Both petrol and diesel have gone up but by 1.71 per cent and 1.27 per cent respectively, while Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) has gone up by 6.18 per cent.

With the increases, petrol will now sell at GHp 214.73 per litre, while gas oil moves up from GHp 211.11 per litre to GHp 213.79, with LPG going up from its previous price of GHp 200 to GHp 212.35 per litre.

The Ghana Road Transport Co-ordinating Council (GRTCC), the apex body of all transport unions and associations in the country, says it is, however, revising methods used in calculating increases in fares.

Fuel price increases have, most often, dictated transport fare hikes in the country.

The General Secretary of the GRTCC, Alhaji Aliyu Baba, described the increases as minimal and subsequently asked all drivers not to increase fares pending the revision of the council’s model.

According to him, the cost of fuel comprised only about 26 per cent of the total cost of running a vehicle.

In an interview with the Daily Graphic shortly after the release of the new petroleum prices, Alhaji Baba said a consultant had already been contracted to undertake a market survey of all other variables that went into running transportation.

The survey would be used as the baseline for the new model of transport fare increases.

The variables, he said, included lubricants, spare parts, tyres, wages for drivers and conductors, vehicle income tax (VIT) and insurance covers.

He said most of those components had been increased in the past years, some by as much as 50 per cent and more.

For instance, he said, VIT was to have been increased to about 350 per cent recently because for eight years, no increases had been done.

But upon the intervention of the executives of driver unions, the insurance was pegged at a 100 per cent, with a freeze on any further increases for two years.

Alhaji Baba said the aim of the GRTCC was to end the era when fuel increases translated into transport fare increases, sometimes done arbitrary by some drivers.

Alhaji Baba indicated that the new model of transport fare increases would take into consideration the circumstance of the Ghanaian, so that the full cost would not be pushed onto commuters.

He said the GRTCC had consulted with the Ministry of Transport on the matter, and would be announcing fares based on the new model in a few weeks’ time.

 By Caroline Boateng/Daily Graphic/Ghana