The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers [COPEC], has said it will embark on a demonstration on Wednesday over what it describes as the persistent increase in the prices of petroleum products.<\/p>\n
According to the Chamber, the demonstration, which is in collaboration with the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), is to force government to further reduce taxes on petroleum products.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”DjkxFhkKDJtxL69KPohecgNiodfhOeO3″]Consumers have had to pay more at the pumps for a better part of 2017, and in January 2018, prices went up due to rise in oil prices, and the cedi\u2019s marginal depreciation.<\/p>\n
Currently, a litre of both petrol and diesel, go for 4 cedis 62 pesewas at some major fuel stations.<\/p>\n
This is despite assurances from the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) that prices will remain fairly stable at the pumps.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Citi News<\/strong>, the Executive Director of COPEC, Duncan Amoah, called on government to review prices of petroleum products.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are paying close to five dollars in order to be able to get petrol to your tank. That clearly is not helping anything. We understand very well that some of the taxes were introduced as windfall taxes at the time that world market prices had dropped so low and Ghana needed a little more revenue in order to be able to cushion the world market prices that have gone down.”<\/p>\n \u201cToday, the same dynamics are not at play. Unfortunately, the taxes that were introduced which should have gone by now, are still all in place. Ghana selling petrol above 20 cedis and it is still going up, it cannot be sustained. We need an immediate review of the price build up. We need some reduction. We need some stability in order to plan our spending on petroleum products in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Fuel prices to rise by 2% in February \u2013 IES<\/strong><\/p>\n The Institute of Energy Security (IES), had earlier predicted that prices of fuel may go up by 2 percent in the first pricing window in February, between February 2, 2018 and February 15, 2018.<\/p>\n The IES further attributed the development to the constant rise in crude oil prices which is currently selling at 69 dollars per barrel on the international market, among other factors.<\/p>\n \u201cCrude oil prices have gone up on the international market and it is still rising; as we speak the cost of a barrel of oil is averaging around 69 dollars from a previous average of 67.7 dollars. That\u2019s a rise of about 2 percent. The finished product that\u2019s gasoline and gas oil prices have also gone up on the international market,\u201d Principal Research Analyst at the IES, Richmond Rockson had told Citi Business News<\/strong> in an interview.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Marian Ansah & Fred Djabanor\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers [COPEC], has said it will embark on a demonstration on Wednesday over what it describes as the persistent increase in the prices of petroleum products. According to the Chamber, the demonstration, which is in collaboration with the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), is to force government to further reduce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":179403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32,11],"tags":[9123,1059,3],"yoast_head":"\n