ACEP proposes daily fuel price adjustments

The African Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) has called for daily adjustment of the prices of petroleum products in the country.

Deputy Executive Director of ACEP, Benjamin Boakye, who made the call during an interaction with the media yesterday in Accra, said the move would help reduce changes in petroleum products prices owing to volatility in the average bi-weekly exchange rate used in pricing the products.

According to him, it would also help to check cartels in the nation’s petroleum marketing industry.

He asked the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to allow operators within the sector to adjust the prices of petroleum products themselves.

The Deputy Executive Director claimed consumers have not benefitted from the competition in the industry.

“Even though there has been some reasonable competition among the Bulk Oil Distribution Companies (BDCs) in importation and sale of petroleum products to Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs), the reality is that the consumer does not feel the effect of the competition because NPA sets the price ceiling which OMCs do not see reason to sell below,” he said.

Commenting on the deregulation policy, he said government should fast-track the amendment of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) Law (Act 691) to recognize full-price deregulation.

He argued that the existing law on deregulation does not recognize the role of the market operators in fixing prices, especially the maximum indicative prices.

ACEP further called for the abolition of certain taxes, levies and margins in the petroleum sector that only distort prices and increase the burden on consumers.

The Center also called for the eradication of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) Debt Recovery levy of GH8p per litre and Ghana National Petroleum Exploration Levy.

“ACEP believes that Ghanaians have overpaid that debt and we believe that the money from this levy is not being used to pay the debt,” he added.

It asked Government to “abolish the Road Fund levy of Gh7.3p per litre and collect the road fund levy through the road tolls.”