Review Deregulation Policy, Adopt Gulf Corporation Model
- COPEC to Gov’t. … As they call on gov’t to reconstitute Boards
Story by: Frederick E. Aggrey
Executive Secretary of Chamber of Petroleum Consumers, Duncan Amoah has called on the Ghana government to review the deregulation policy, since it is skewed detrimentally against the Ghanaian petroleum consumer, therefore government should adopt the Gulf Corporation pricing model.
He said the current system of deregulation clearly works against the poor and the ordinary.
He said further that, the three major components of pricing, being the international market price, the cedi dollar exchange and the tax component on pricing all mostly work together against Ghanaians.
He noted that, even if a single one of the components work against Ghanaians, fuel prices would go up, making it a system that mostly work against Ghanaians than for them.
He said further that, when government reduces tax components, it is usually very insignificant, but the reverse is the situation when it decides to tax Ghanaians.
He referenced the fact that there has been a cumulative increase in petroleum prices of about 36% since the beginning of the year, whilst incomes has not seen any significant increase., resulting in decreased standard of living.
He suggested that, pricing could be tweaked to the relief of the Ghanaian, in that, when oil prices on the world market rises, portion of the resultant gains to the country would be used to subsidize prices, as a correlative effect on Ghana’s crude export in order to cushion the price effects on the final consumer.
He suggested further that, Ghana should replicate the model of pricing being used at the Gulf corporation countries, where prices of petroleum are managed well so that, sometimes prices remain unchanged for a whole 10 year period.
According to him, the deregulation policy has not led to increase in the standards of living of the people in any way, but has rather worsened their plight by the day.
In other related matter, he called on the government to reconstitute the boards of corporations in the industry.
According to him, since the boards were dissolved by the then Chief of Staff of Ghana on the eve of the swearing in of the new administration, no new boards have been reconstituted, making the running of these institutions difficult.
He added that, some of the old board members are also engaging themselves in activities of these institutions illegally, taking advantage of the absence of the new boards to pursue personal interests.
He therefore called on the President to, as a matter of urgency and national interest, reconstitute all the boards in the industry, also to forestall lots of the corruption going on such as fuel smuggling and the rest.
He further called on the Minister of Energy to adopt policy that supports the ‘Green Revolution’ that’s happening around the world.
Source: www.thenewindependentonline.com
