The Head of Research at the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), Mr Benjamin Nsiah, has called for the use of the petroleum revenue to stabilize the price of petroleum products to cushion Ghanaians in wake of the hikes in fuel prices.

According to him, every responsible government faced with this situation will be seen doing something in this direction.

He said the government needs to take steps to use the petroleum revenue to stabilize the price of the product.

He added that the government can go further by scrapping some of the taxes on the product in the short term.

Mr Nsiah made this call on Accra 100.5 FM’s evening news on Monday, 14, 2022. 

He disclosed that countries like France have injected two billion Euros into the petroleum sector to stabilize the price of the products to alleviate the suffering of the people of France.

“Even next-door Nigeria has also injected an amount of seven billion dollars into the price of petroleum products to stabilize the price of the product for the people,” he stated.   

Meanwhile, COPEC has projected Ghanaians will soon be buying diesel and petrol at GHS10 and GHS9 per litre at the pumps from Wednesday, 16 March 2022.

In a statement, COPEC put the impending spike on soaring crude prices on the international market coupled with the tumbling of the cedi against the US dollar and other major currencies of trade.

COPEC said Free On Board prices of petrol increased by 19.28% from $917.48/MT to 1094.33/MT while diesel went up 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 to 15th March 2022) and the second window (16th to 31st March 2022).

“The petroleum price indicators as published by the NPA shows that the price of Gasoil (diesel) will increase by 30.41% from GH¢8.22 per litre in this current window to Gh¢10.721 per litre beginning 16th March 2022 and ex-pump prices of Gasoline (petrol) will increase by 18.25% from GH¢8.22 per litre to GH¢727 per litre within the same period”, the statement said.

The Chamber observed that cedi has plummeted by 9.71% against the dollar from GHS6.8360 to GHS7.500.

Apart from diesel and petrol, COPEC said the ex-pump prices of LPG will also jump by 23% from GHS 9.8 per kg in this current window to GH¢12.04 per kg in the next window beginning March 16, 2022.

“This implies that a 14.5 kg [cylinder] will be sold at GHS174.58,” the statement said.

The above factors, coupled with the restoration of the Price Stabilisation and Energy Recovery levy after a three-month suspension, have consistently spiked the price of fuel at the pumps