Fuel price increases will derail economy – COPEC

The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers Ghana (COPEC) wants the Finance Ministry to break its silence on the rising cost of fuel prices.

With fuel prices expected to hit at least GH¢10 per litre, COPEC’s Executive Director, Ducan Amoah said Ghana’s economy is in danger of being wrecked.

“Everybody is complaining, but yet the finance guys who deal with these numbers have gone mute,” he said on Eyewitness News.

“Let the Finance Ministry stop sleeping and speak to these issues because clearly, these increases and the ones we are expecting on Wednesday is going to do only one thing. It is going to derail the entire economy completely.”

After COPEC had warned that diesel could cross GH¢10 per litre and petrol rising to GH¢9 per litre from March 16, the National Petroleum Authority confirmed that increases of this nature are expected.

Also, on Eyewitness News, Abbas Ibrahim, the head of Pricing at the NPA, said “definitely that the price that we expect at the pump as has been projected is very likely to go beyond the GH¢9 mark.”

He expects some variation based on the plans of the various oil marketing companies.

“GH¢9 is the very realistic price we could be paying in the next window, but it could be higher than that or lower than that depending on the company’s strategy.”

COPEC attributed the expected increase to the rising cost of crude on the international market and the cedi which is currently depreciating among major trading currencies. In a statement on Monday, it said the Free On Board prices of petrol increased by 19.28% from $917.48/MT to 1094.33/MT, diesel by 34.57% from $845.50/MT to $1137.78/MT and LPG by 17.42% from $845.93/MT to $993.25/MT between the first pricing window (1st-15th March 2022) and the second window (16th -31st March 2022).

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Source: citinewsroom.com