MP heads to court over deregulation

The sitting Member of Parliament (MP) for the Adansi Asokwa constituency has revealed on Accra-based Citi FM, that he would head to court over the decision of government and the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to deregulate petroleum prices.

According to Hon. KT Hammond, the NPA was shirking its legal responsibility of pricing petroleum products by leaving the task to Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) to do.

The legislator contended that the NPA in taking that decision had jumped the gun by side stepping parliament, so by implication, he had an issue with the constitutionality of the NPA's directive hence his decision to head to court.

With deregulation expected to start today, NPA had given OMCs the go ahead to announce their own ex-pump prices starting today.

According to a statement released by the NPA, “the implementation of this first stage of price deregulation will continue into subsequent pricing windows while the Authority reviews the existing legal framework of petroleum products pricing towards a smooth implementation of the full steps of petroleum products price deregulation in Ghana."

Current reports indicate that fuel prices have gone up by 4% with the exception of premix fuel and residual fuel oil.

This means fuel stations can increase to a maximum of 4% or lower but these increases are expected to continue over the next weeks till the subsidies are fully paid.