The PPP considers the current increases in petroleum prices as unacceptable, unjustifiable, insensitive and suffocating. The government through the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) announced a nine percent increment in petroleum prices over the weekend.
According to the NPA, the price increase has been necessitated by the rapid depreciation o f the cedi. According to the NPA, "These increases as we see are full time recovery because we don’t want to incur any loses or any under-recoveries again…you also know that the cedi has seen some depreciation in the period under review. And these three factors all uniting, is what has caused the price to increase to 9 percent.”
The point we wish to put across is that the government of Ghana refused to reduce fuel prices in like measure when the world price for crude oil dropped in the last quarter of 2014 for about 50% from USD120.00 to less than USD50.00. When this happened the government of Ghana, per His Excellency President Mahama indicated that the windfall should be reserved or saved against future increases in the prices on the world market.
The depreciation of the cedi and the consequent foreign exchange losses experienced by the Bulk Oil Distribution Companies is the direct consequence of the mismanagement of the economy by the government. It is therefore unthinkable for government to worsen our current situation by transferring the losses to Ghanaians. We can no longer pay for the inefficiencies and the incompetence of the government. It would be better for the president to resign than to continue to punish the people for giving him an opportunity to govern and make life better and comfortable for us all.
We are now at the mercy of dumsor which has caused considerable harm to businesses and individuals in terms high cost of business, investment losses, collapse of industries and small businesses and loss of thousands of jobs. This dumsor is also caused by the same government’s inability to produce enough energy to support the economy. We currently purchase petroleum products to power our industries and our homes and the best the government can do is to slap us with an increase in fuel prices. What crime did we commit to deserve these high levels of economic mismanagement? We call on government to reverse this current increase in petroleum prices until the dumsor is over and take steps to halt the free fall of our currency.
The people of Ghana should indeed be wide Awake ahead of the 2016 elections.
<<Print>>