Politicians Have Failed To Cushion Consumers From Fuel Price Hikes

The CEO of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors, Senyo Hosi, has chided policymakers for not thinking outside the box when addressing the impact of oil prices on citizens.

Speaking on Citi TV’s Point of View, he remarked that issues in the oil business are not tackled in isolation.

This was in relation to fuel prices hitting GHc5 per litre in line with projections by the Institute for Energy Security (IES).

The IES attributed this largely to the depreciation of the cedi.

“So you should start asking, from a policy perspective, how do I deal with the impact that fluctuating petroleum prices can have on the daily lives of our people and that is where politicians have unfortunately just failed,” Mr. Hosi said.

Ghana has been seen to have “very myopic thinking in our policy space,” Mr. Hosi observed.

Focus on mass transport
Given that fuel prices have a strong bearing on transportation costs, he suggested that more investments in mass transportation were needed.

“You can’t deal with petroleum prices as a country internationally. But what we can deal with is the impact it has on the people. So what kind of investments are we making in mass transportation?”

As a marker of the country’s missed opportunities, he pointed out that the country spent over $2 billion trying to subsidize petroleum prices over a period of about four years.

But that money could have been invested in the mass transportation sector and “the impact of prices going up will not be that material to our daily lives.”