NPA to review 15% petroleum tax after fuel demo

The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) says prices of petroleum products are likely to go down in the coming days.

The Chief Executive Officer of the NPA, Mr Hassan Tampuli who hinted of the possible reduction attributed this to the decline in crude oil prices on the global market last week.

The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers, Ghana (COPEC-Ghana) has threatened to engineer a nationwide protest should government fail to respond to calls for reduction in the cost of fuel within one week.

They made the pronouncement last Wednesday after a protest in the capital-Accra that saw dozens, including the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union and several transport unions across the country demonstrating to express their displeasure with the fuel hikes.

The demonstration, according to COPEC-GH was to force government to reduce taxes on petroleum products.

But Speaking on Newsfile on Saturday, the NPA Chief Executive Officer said government had considered making proposals to make the Special Petroleum Tax a specific amount instead of a “percentage of ex-depot price”, so it does not trigger any future increases in prices.

“One thing that we have all agreed on is that instead of making the Special Petroleum Tax a percentage of ex-depot price, we will rather make it a specific amount so that it does not compound any future increases in the prices and it will also help government to stabilise revenue when prices go down,” he explained.

He added that the considerations may happen in the next pricing window indicating “as at yesterday [last Friday], we have been having meetings about when to do it. We didn’t need [the COPEC and ICU] demonstration to even let us know that is what we should do.”