The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) has held a day’s sensitisation workshop for commercial drivers aimed at equipping them with the requisite knowledge on petroleum pricing and quality.
The day’s event comes on the back of recent continuous hikes in petroleum price on the global market due to ripple-effects of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Opening the forum, the Chief Executive Officer of the NPA, Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, said government has instituted a number of measures to ensure adequate supply of petroleum products on the market.
“I have seen a video of mates actually in fisticuffs with passengers, you are upset about petroleum price increases and so on, all of those things came to our attention, and it results from lack of knowledge on how we arrive at these petroleum prices,” he said.
“So that you understand petroleum prices don’t go up and down depending on the mood of the President Akufo-Addo, and they don’t go up and down depending on the mood of the Chief Executive of the National Petroleum Authority.
“It is important for us all as Ghanaians to understand how all these come about because now we all listen to radio and we can see that there is a worldwide crisis; there is crisis in Britain, there is crisis in America of great proportions, and I am sure most of you are shocked that America is now airlifting baby food from Germany,” he added.
Head, Economic Regulation at the National Petroleum Authority, Abass Tasunti, took the participants through the dynamics and what goes into petroleum pricing in Ghana.
He emphasised that government has put in place a number of measures to ensure the country does not experience shortage of petroleum products which is being experienced in oil producing countries like Nigeria.
Tasunti mentioned that recent reduction of fuel margins, collaboration with the Oil Marketing Companies (OMC’s) and intervention of the Bank of Ghana in the forex market has helped a great.
Some participants described the forum as beneficial and enlightening.
“This meeting is an eye-opener to us; we will go back and share the knowledge with our colleagues and return to further dialogue with the NPA,” one of the participant summarised.
They however called on the NPA to step up effort in dealing with adulterated fuel from some filling stations in the country.
On his part, the Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), Duncan Amoah, described the workshop as timely.
