Contrary to speculations that the prices of fuel will go up by 20% on Tuesday, July 1st, Public Relations Officer of the petroleum Industry regulator, National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Yaro Kasambata has stated that the prices will not increase.
It is alleged that certain filling stations were hoarding the fuel, awaiting an increase which was assumed to happen come July 1, however, speaking on Okay FM’s newspaper review show this morning, Mr Kasambata said the prices will stay same.
Over the weekend, there were rumours that the increase was to enable oil distribution and marketing companies recover cost incurred in obtaining crude oil; whose cost had risen due to the fall of the cedi, into the country.
Yaro Kasambata had early on revealed he was uncertain if the prices will increase as the NPA was yet to meet to decide on the issue.
According to the NPA Spokesperson, NPA officials are “still collating figures and we will meet over the weekend. We will look at the overall effect of what we have and that will be the decider that on June 30th or July 1, prices should go up or stay flat.”
Currently, Premium sells at GH¢2.73 per litre at the pumps while Diesel is sold at GH¢2.65 per litre.
Kerosene is also traded at GH¢2.61 a litre and GH¢2.87 a kilogramme for LPG. Gas Oil and premix fuel have been pegged at GH¢2.7 and GH¢1.25 a litre respectively.
Since the year began, prices of petroleum products have been adjusted upwards three times, which sums up to about 16 percent as a result of a fall in the cedis despite the strong intervention by the Central Bank in February.
Over the past four days, the country was hit hard by an acute shortage of fuel, with many motorists either parking their cars at home or queuing at filling stations with the hope of being supplied the products.
The shortage came on the heels of a warning from the Bulk oil Distribution Companies, demanding government paid a debt of GHc1.5billion it owed them; a debt, the government has pegged at rather GHc300million.