The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has observed that “fuel price hikes, today, have become a frequent occurrence, with prices going up at the pumps sometimes twice or three times a week”.
“This phenomenon has largely been occasioned by the continuous depreciation of our national currency, the Ghana cedi, under the watch of the NPP’s self-professed Economic wizard now turned comical IT champion, Alhaji Bawumia,”, the party’s National Communications Officer, Mr. Sammy Gyamfi, told journalists at a press conference on Wednesday, 3 August 2022.
He said: “There is no gainsaying the fact that fuel prices have a ripple effect on the prices of general goods and services because of their direct impact on transport fares. Therefore, when fuel prices keep going up, it sparks a negative contagion on everything”.
“Contrary to what President Akufo-Addo, Alhaji Bawumia and their many apologists in government will have us believe, the astronomical increases in fuel prices in recent time have very little to do with the five-month-old war between Russia and Ukraine”, Mr Gyamfi noted.
“On the contrary”, he pointed out, “it has to do largely with the continuous depreciation of the Cedi against its major trading currencies, notably the US Dollar. This is simply because the fuel we consume at the downstream sector is imported”.
“Today, the US Dollar which used to trade with the Cedi at GHS4.2 in December 2016 is trading with the Cedi at about GHS9. This has resulted in the deterioration of the capital of most Bulk Distribution Companies (BDCs) and Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs). These entities who are struggling to break even are left with no option than to pass on the knock-on effect of the currency depreciation to the final consumer. This is what has mainly resulted in persistent and astronomical increases at the pumps which have moved the price of a gallon of diesel from about GHS14 as at December 2016 to as high as GHS60 as we speak. As a matter of fact, the price of a litre of diesel today which is GHS13.3 is almost the same as what the price of a gallon of diesel used to be in the year 2016- GHS14. This is how bad things have become in this country under the bad leadership of the Bawumia-led Economic Management Team”, he said.
Posted by: Emmanuel Romeo Tetteh
