Gold for Oil: We’re committed to strengthening policy to cushion Ghanaians – Energy Minister

Energy Minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the Gold-for-Oil policy is improved and strengthened for the benefit of the Ghanaian consumer of petroleum products.

Dr Opoku Prempeh noted that the policy has been proven to rein in escalating fuel prices and everything is being done with stakeholders to ensure that the policy gets better.

“As a Ministry, we remain committed, together with stakeholders at ensuring that, the programme grows from strength to strength, in line with one of our key objectives of ensuring the availability and realistic pricing of petroleum products with emphasis on cushioning Ghanaians,” the Minister announced on social media after an interaction with Rotary Club of Accra-Ring Road.

The Gold-for-Oil policy is aimed at ensuring that the price of petroleum products remains within the reach of Ghana by exchanging gold for oil instead of buying oil with dollars which puts pressure on the Cedi and leads to forex challenges.

The policy, being spearheaded by Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has had some successes in March, the Vice President touted the successes of the policy and explained how it was impacting the economy.

“The most important aspect of the gold-for-oil policy is not just the reduction in fuel prices but the savings in foreign exchange that the Bank of Ghana will make as a result of the lower demand for forex to import oil. The prices of fuel will go up and come down but what we are expected to see is more stability in the pricing and also savings in foreign exchange,” he said.

Full post of Energy Minister below:

Last night, at the invitation of the Rotary Club of Accra-Ring Road Central, I walked Rotarians and guests through the nuances of the ‘Gold for Oil’ programme, one of the important interventions of government in the wake of the current times.

Our conversation was quite fruitful and I believe it helped clear some doubts and misconceptions about the programme, which has proven to be a major curtailer of galloping fuel prices in the context of industry factors.

As a Ministry, we remain committed, together with stakeholders at ensuring that, the programme grows from strength to strength, in line with one of our key objectives of ensuring the availability and realistic pricing of petroleum products with emphasis on cushioning Ghanaians.