Review fuel hikes to bring relief to Ghanaians : NPP
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has called on the government to,as a matter of urgency,review the prices of fuel downward instead of hiking them.
Advertisement
In a statement, the Communications Director of the NPP, Nana Akomea, said per the determinants of petrol prices, “petrol should be selling at
GH¢9 a gallon “.
“Indeed the trend all over the world, including the rich countries, has been drastic falls in petrol prices.
It is, therefore, totally baffling that in Ghana, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government has not seen it fit to reduce the price of petroleum products to bring much-needed relief to the Ghanaian consumer, but has actually increased the price of petrol by a whopping 27 per cent, from GH¢12 a gallon to nearly Gh¢16 a gallon,” the statement said.
The statement, therefore, urged the government to immediately reverse the imposition of the 27 per cent hike on petroleum products, which has seen the price of petrol increase from Gh¢12 to over Gh¢15 a gallon, effective January 1, 2016.
‘Reverse the imposition’
It said the 27 per cent increase was completely unjustified.
The statement pointed out that there were two main determinants of petrol prices: which were the cedi exchange rate and the price of crude oil.
‘’The price of the cedi exchange rate has been relatively stable, at GH¢3.85, in the last few months. The price of crude oil on the international market has actually fallen steeply, from $110 in mid-2014 to $37 today,’’ the statement explained
It said by the operation of the automatic petrol price adjustment formula, petrol should be selling around GH¢9 a gallon.
Other Trending Stories
The effect, the statement said, was that, ‘the poor consumer does not get the well-deserved relief in petrol price, but is actually punished by the government of NDC through the imposition of higher prices for petrol’’.
Furthermore, it said that over the last month or so, the NDC government had imposed at once a 60 per cent increase in tariffs for electricity, a 67 per cent rise in water tariffs and a 27 per cent rise in petrol price on the long-suffering Ghanaian.
Unbearable increases
The statement observed that all these unbearable increases had come on the back of only a 10 per cent increase in workers' wages and salaries.
‘’The increases, therefore, show a callous, wicked, insensitive and lazy government which quickly, time and again, resorts to using state power to financially squeeze the poor Ghanaian consumer,’’ it stated.
The statement said apart from the poor Ghanaian paying directly for the 60 per cent, 67 per cent and 27 per cent increases, the poor taxpayer would still be confronted with the challenge of dipping their hands further into their already depleted pockets to pay for anticipated increases in trotro fares, electricity, water, school fees, sachet water, rent, and food .
‘‘Businesses are also going to suffer from increases in operating costs, losses in profit and further limiting their ability to expand and create jobs for the teeming unemployed youth.’’ the statement declared.
The statement noted that the NDC government had removed all subsidies on petrol prices by its operation of the automatic petrol pricing formula so that when the prices of oil or the dollar increased, the effect of petrol price increase would be passed on to the Ghanaian consumer without any cushion.
Authomatic reduction
The NPP further stated that at a time when the price of oil had fallen to its lowest level in seven years, the NDC government had not allowed the automatic reduction in petrol price to operate, as per the automatic adjustment formula, but had rather imposed new and increased taxes to raise the price of petrol by a whopping 27 per cent.
These taxes, imposed under a certificate of urgency, the statement said, included taxes on Ghanaians for a so-called " legacy debt" (or Energy Debt Recovery Levy), another Energy Fund Levy, a Price Stabilisation and Recovery Levy, a National Electrification Scheme Levy, dramatic increases in the Road Fund Levy and the Public Lighting Levy.
The statement was of the view that the imposition of these taxes and levies at this time, in the face of the steep increases in water and electricity tariffs, portrayed a very uncaring and wicked government, whose main policy was to impose higher and new taxes on the suffering Ghanaian, even in the face of poor growth in the economy.
#GhanaVotes2016