Rising fuel prices, insurance, spare parts led to GH¢131.6m spent on vehicle maintenance - BoG

Ghana’s Central Bank has said the surge leading to the GH¢131.6 million spent on vehicle maintenance in 2022 was due a number of factors including rising cost of fuel, insurance and others within the period.

Minority Leader in Parliament, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, when addressing a press conference on August 8, 2023 said the figure spent by Bank of Ghana represents 114 percent increase as compared to the previous year in 2021.

Responding to the assertion, the BoG in a statement said, “Firstly, the vehicle maintenance expenses line is a generic name for expense covering fuel cost for all BoG operations, insurance of all BoG fleet of vehicles, car parts replacements, and other maintenance cost.”

It added that historically, fuel cost has accounted for about 90 percent of expenses under vehicle maintenance.

“For 2022, the fuel cost increased by 123.3 percent compared to 28.9 percent in 2021. This was on the back of petrol and diesel prices increasing from GHC6.6618 per liter of petrol, and GHC6.665 per liter of diesel at the end of 2021 to GHC 16.5811 per litre of petrol and GHC19.6053 per liter of diesel at the end of 2022. This implies increases of 149% (Avg. 87%) and 194% (Avg. 122%),” the statement said.

“Given the scale of the Bank’s operations, ensuring that the currency is distributed to every corner of the country to ensure seamless medium of exchange for our legal tender, the cedi, such a cost is a major line in our operations and any such changes would lead to a huge jump,” it added.

The BoG further noted that items such as car spare parts and others are all linked to the foreign currency [US Dollar] as converting these to Ghana Cedis at the exchange rate in 2022 would result to a surge in expenses under vehicle maintenance.

“We also had significant increases in insurance costs etc. for all our fleet of vehicles and bullion vans across the country,” the BoG statement concluded.

MA/NOQ