Stabilize petroleum prices - Mahama to Akufo-Addo

Former President John Mahama has criticized the Akufo-Addo government for reneging on its campaign promise on fuel.

According to the Former President, the high price of petrol is worrying hence government must find ways to stabilize the prices of petroleum products to mitigate the brunt on consumers, especially liquefied petroleum Gas (LPG).

“We were told that it was too expensive and that 50% of the petrol was made up of taxes alone and that when they win and come into office, they would remove the taxes so that petrol will be cheaper but today petrol is selling at GHC22 per gallon.”

He added “I am even more concerned about LPG because LPG was about GHc40 before December 7. Today LPG is more than GHc80. What it means is that for those who cannot afford LPG, they will go back to using charcoal and we all know the implications of using charcoal. When you use charcoal, it degrades the environment and so government should do something about the price of LPG particularly”.

Addressing a large crowd of NDC supporters at Somanya Lorry station to climax the Unity Walk Saturday in the Eastern region, Mahama said prudent measures were used to stabilize petroleum prices during his tenure.

“We [the NDC government] managed to stabilize the price of fuel in 2016 before we left. Even though we had deregulated, we found a way of making sure that prices remained stable. Now the extent to which [the price of fuel] keeps going up is a worry, and so I think it is something that government should look at.”

The Unity Walk held in Somanya, according to the organizers is the longest Walk (16Km). Some former government officials who took part in the Walk were former Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah, former Deputy Agric minister, Hannah Bisiw, former Eastern regional Minister, Mavis Ama Frimpong, NDC Members of Parliament in the Eastern Region ,former MDCEs, some national Executives of the NDC including, Kofi Adams, Solomon Nkansah ,and hosts of others.