NPP robbing Peter to pay Paul with fuel increment - Prof. Kofi Anokye

Chief Executive Officer of KOANS Estate, Prof. Kofi Anokye has argued that, the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), has not done anything new in dealing with the energy crisis.

The only thing the NPP government has done is to shot the prices of fuel upwards in order to get the balance to solve our electricity issues, he said.

Ghana is relying heavily on power plant and because of that, we need crude to power them.

He is suggesting a dependence on another source of power without reliance on fuel including crude to reduce the cost for managing them.

The call for the reduction in fuel he noted cannot be possible because any attempt to reduce fuel prices would plunge us back to ‘dumsor’.

Speaking to Kwame Tutu on Rainbow Radio 87.5FM, the estate developer said, although he does not have any evidence, he is compelled to believe that government is robbing Peter to pay Paul by increasing fuel prices to sustain the electricity issues.

He posited on the show that, the method being used by government to address our energy issues including electricity does not make business sense.

‘’Any attempt to reduce fuel prices will spell doom for Ghana. We will go back to dumsor. I am challenging them to reduce fuel prices and see the consequences. They have not done or introduce a new technology. There is nothing new they have introduced. What they have done is to just review and regularise the old things done under the previous administration, ’’ he said.

The cost of electricity in Ghana he insisted was still expensive as compared to other countries. In his view, we will still have energy crisis if ''you stabilise the price of electricity but increase the price of fuel.''

‘’The cost of electricity has never gone down as touted. The cost of electricity is still expensive. The cost of doing business in Ghana is still expensive,’’ he added.

The prices of fuel has increased. A litre of diesel and petrol are being sold at GH¢5.18 and GH¢5.14 respectively.

The increase was in line with predictions by the Institute of Energy Securities (IES) over the weekend that fuel prices would go beyond GH¢5 to a litre based on its research on the second pricing window.

The IES is predicting further hikes in the prices of fuel as the cedi continuous to struggle against its major trading currencies.