But for the flexibility and adaptiveness of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Ghana would have been hit with a severe fuel crisis. This is according to the Communications Manager of NPA, Mohammed Kudus.
He said this when he spoke on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show. Mr. Kudus’ comments are in connection to two price increases by OMCs within a single pricing window.
“You would all agree with me, in the last two weeks, we have seen an unprecedented depreciation of the cedi and so it has called for a certain realistic pricing outside of what ordinarily NPA would have allowed. Because we at NPA are not minded by how much they sell, but the availability of the product, we ought to be appreciative of the circumstances that we have found ourselves in,” he said.
Mr. Kudus went on to suggest that NPA’s direct intervention has prevented fuel shortages in the country.
“Trust me, if we [NPA] were supposed to be that regimental, and insisted on a formula and say, no, you cannot go that much, we would probably not have had fuel at our pumps as other African countries like our own big brother Nigeria.”
“We don’t want a situation where you will have a shortage of the product in the country,” he said.
Meanwhile, instead of reviewing pricing biweekly as per the formula agreement established with the Economic Regulations Department of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) are now able to do so in accordance with the current FX environment.
The caveat therein is that the OMCs cannot alter the pricing of the established formula.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
