Chamber of Petroleum Consumers Ghana (COPEC-GH) has called for five percent reduction in the prices of fuel in the first fuel pricing window for August 2016 under the deregulation programme of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA).
According to the Coalition, the five percent fuel reduction has become necessary due to over 17.164 percent price fall from previous level of $50.22 per barrel to the current indexes of $41.60 per barrel on the world market over the past four windows.
Duncan Amoah, Executive Secretary of COPEC, in a statement, said the Ghanaian downstream and pumps have remained quite insensitive to movement of indexes on the world market and the cedi’s performance over the past four pricing windows or two months.
He explained that the cedi over the same period has lost marginally around 1.78 percent to close trading at GH¢3.96 to a dollar, adding that “given a standard variance of five percent cumulative, the Ghanaian petroleum consumer could have gotten at least 11-12 percent reductions at the pumps but we have so far recorded below five percent net reductions over same period.
“Prices at the local pumps have so far not reflected prevailing figures both on the international markets and the cedi-dollar exchange, though same have contributed immensely in no small way in the past when pump prices have gone up: the phenomenon where periods for reductions seem to go unheeded is becoming increasingly worrying,” Mr Amoah said.
He therefore called on the various Bulk Distribution Companies (BDCs) and Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) to reduce fuel prices by at least five percent to ensure that the right things are done in a deregulated market where the cardinal principle of fairness is upheld across the world.
By Cephas Larbi
cephrok@yhaoo.com