The Former President Jerry Rawlings has said bluntly: “Government cannot subsidise fuel if it is to carry out development programmes.” He went on to say that Ghanaians should be prepared to pay right prices for petrol if the country was to avoid shortages and disruptions in economic activities.
The date was Saturday 24 June 2000. The scene was a durbar marking ACDR Day held at Kumasi. President Rawlings (as he was then) was aware of the growing crippling debt crisis at the state-owned Tema Oil Refinery (TOR).
The cedi was fast depreciating. The price of crude oil was not being particularly helpful. Development partners, with tightened fists, were forcing Rawlings’ hand to act. The opposition who had little clues as to the bludgeoning size of TOR’s liability to creditors were snapping at the heels of the NDC.
These were hard times. There was a classic Hobson’s choice to be made. But, crucially, elections were just over five months away. The Cabinet of Ministers was anxiously weighing up short-term political expediency on one scale and responsible and pragmatic economic governance on the other.
With half a year of ticking left on his 19 year old leadership clock, a Cabinet decision was taken for Former President Rawlings to float the kismet idea of petroleum price hikes-to test the waters, as it were.
Choosing a forum packed with die-hard loyalists, the President warned Ghanaians that unless the nation faced reality and adjusted the prices of petroleum products it could face grim periods.
Unfortunately, when it got to the derring-do, his government did the um and ah for the fear of risking their already wobbly electoral fortunes, leaving TOR’s debt to shoot up to 3.4 trillion cedis.
Prof Mills, however, ended being floored twice by the electorate without the added injury such an unpopular but necessary fuel price increase would have caused.
But this was not before Rawlings, in plain words, told ACDR activists on that fateful day at Kumasi that there were problems in the horizon and Ghanaians should be prepared to pay the right prices for petrol as a sine qua non for implementing development projects.
With his spokesperson, Victor Smith was asked yesterday whether his boss still holds the view that Ghanaians should pay realistic prices he answered in the affirmative. “No one is saying there shouldn’t be price adjustment. What everyone is talking about is the quantum, 100%?”
When pushed further as to whether Rawlings’ call for realistic adjustments couldn’t be equated to Kan-Dapaah’s move for realistic prices Victor Smith was, however, not able to comment further as he was called in the middle of an assignment. He promised to call back but at the time of going to press he was yet to.
The NDC leaders’ call in June 2000 for realistic fuel price of increments did not come with any conditionality such as a pledge to tackle profligacy, inefficiency, mismanagement, corruption and theft at TOR. It was made without promise to introduce a mass public transport system or even any token sacrifices from government officials.
Rawlings did not mince his words. With Obed Asamoah and Dan Abodakpi, among others, sitting next to him, he told Ghanaians that the options opened to the nation were limited and warned that the prospects could be agloomy.
He was quick to draw some comparisons with a neighbouring country. He said an oil exporting country such as Nigeria had been hit by economic crisis and dismissed NPP contention that the NDC government was incapable of managing the economy.
