Pratt accuses NPA of creating fuel shortage

Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. has lambasted the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) for conspiring to create an unbearable fuel shortage in order to justify price increases.

"This is a deliberate conspiracy within the NPA. This is a childish shortage created by irresponsible people in public administration,” he charged on Adom TV’s Badwam program Monday.

The political analyst said the NPA wants to indirectly trigger an increase in the price of fuel by hoarding the commodity.

Consumers have been suffering from an acute fuel shortage since last week. Long queues formed over the week as customers scanned the capital Accra for the scare resource. Parliament was near empty after it was reported barely 60 MPs out of 275 made it to the chamber. The rest were reportedly looking for fuel.

The shortage was created because Bulk Oil Distribution Companies complained they are unable to import fuel because government owed them Ghc1 billion.

The President last week ordered the Finance Ministry to release some $60 million to the companies.

In a press statement issued on Friday, government also instructed Bulk Oil Storage & Transportation (BOST) Company Limited to discharges fuel in its facilities to retailers dotted across the country to ease the pressure.

The statement also said the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum and the NPA will continue to dispatch products every day until the situation stabilizes.

Expressing concern for public discomfort, Pratt described the NPA as “people with childish mentality given major responsibilities.”

“It is the irresponsibility of the NPA that has brought about this hardship,” he lamented.

He called for an independent investigations into the shortages.