While there have been some noticeable rises in petrol prices on the Ghanaian market, residents are being warned that if the government does nothing to address worries about the rapidly depreciating cedi, prices may rise further by the next pricing window.
Sampson Addae, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer for the Chamber for Petroleum Consumers Ghana (COPEC) said this when he spoke to Mark Smith on the Day Break Upper East Show.
“There’s a slight increment on the international market. Over the past few days, crude oil prices have increased by 3 percent on the international market. The other factor is the depreciation of the cedi. We know that over the past few days, the cedi has depreciated by 4 percent. Petrol was increased by 15 percent and diesel was also increased by 15 percent,” he said.
The average prices of petrol on the Ghanaian market have moved from Ghc11.06 percent to over Ghc13.00 per litre. The average price of diesel has increased from about Ghc13.90 per litre to around Ghc15.99. This is according to Mr. Addae.
But the woes of Ghanaians are far from over as the continuous depreciation of the cedi could worsen the case.
“We have to make Tema Oil Refinery work. If it works, import costs would be reduced. If we are refining our products here, the cost would not be that much.”
“Things would even get worse as oil producing countries have also agreed that they would cut down production. Once they are cutting down production, prices are going to go high and the cedi also continues to depreciate. As we speak now, it is now Ghc12 going to Ghc13 to the dollar. We know that whenever we are approaching Christmas, a lot of business men and women would want to import goods for Christmas and so the demand for the dollar increases and then the cedi depreciates more.”
“If care is not taken, it could go Ghc14 or Ghc15 to the dollar,” he said.
Mr. Addae restated COPEC positions that government needs to scrap the nuisance taxes, revamp TOR. Additionally, the government could reach hedging agreements with oil producing countries.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
