It’s Not About Who Pays — It’s About Who Bears the Cost

In what seems like a desperate attempt to justify the GHS 1 per litre fuel levy, some defenders — including policymakers, have argued that the tax is not on individuals but on oil marketing companies, and so consumers should relax because pump prices won’t change. On the surface, this might sound comforting. But it is a dangerously misleading narrative that insults both logic and lived experience.

Let’s be clear: businesses don’t absorb costs out of kindness, they pass them on. When government imposes a tax on fuel companies, it’s not the CEOs or shareholders who carry the burden. It’s the final consumer, the driver, the market woman, the okada rider, the commuter. You.

It’s basic economics. Any additional cost to production or distribution is either transferred directly through price increases or indirectly through reduced quantity, lower quality, or cutbacks in other areas. So whether the GHS 1 is charged at the source or the pump, the bottom line is this, it will still come from your pocket.

Even if pump prices remain unchanged for now, fuel companies are not charities. They will recover their costs. Either gradually, silently, or through other means. That’s how business works. And if they don’t, if they are forced to absorb it, it will reflect in job cuts, service reductions, or stagnating investment in the sector. All of which come back to hurt the same public the government claims to be protecting.

Beyond that, this defence conveniently ignores the deeper issue: why are we being taxed again, especially on a commodity as sensitive and essential as fuel? Why now? Where is the transparency, the accountability, the justification?

And if it’s really the companies paying, why didn’t the government announce it to the companies only? Why was it announced nationally, defended politically, and debated publicly? Because they know, and we know, that in the end, we all pay.

It is insulting to our intelligence to assume we don’t understand how taxation works. It is dangerous to frame citizens’ concerns as ignorance. And it is dishonest to pretend that GHS 1 per litre won’t affect the very people already struggling to survive.

So no, we are not comforted by claims that “the levy is for the companies.” Because we know the weight always rolls downhill. And at the bottom of the hill is the ordinary Ghanaian, again.

Stop the spin. Start the honesty. We deserve better.

By Victor Raul Puobabangna Plance, Eggu, Upper West Region, Ghana

#NotJustOneCedi
#WeAllPay
#GhanaDeservesBetter
#Puobabangna

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