COPEC demands review of fuel price levy

The Chamber of Petroleum consumers (COPEC) is calling for a review of the Price Stabilisation Levy to minimise the impact of the surge in fuel prices on consumers.

Oil prices have seen a significant increase over the last few weeks with some oil marketing companies currently selling a litre of petrol for GHS5.35.

According to the Executive Secretary of COPEC, Duncan Amoah, the government must act soon to protect the interest of consumers.

“This is where we think that the state will also have to commit a bit by reviewing downwards the Price Stabilisation and Recovery Levy to ensure that in times as rough as these, you don’t continue charging Ghanaians a certain tax on pump prices that say you’re going to stabilise fuel prices for us. There is no under-recovery because of deregulation and those monies naturally should have been kept in a fund to stock up at BOST for all of us.”

The price stabilisation levy was first applied in December 2017, as a windfall tax.

At the time, the decision was to cut down on the supposed excessive profits to be made by the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) due to the continuous drop in oil prices on the global market.

Oil price on the global market has seen a significant increase currently selling at about 66 dollars per barrel.

This has been a more than 10 dollars increase from its selling price of about 55 dollars.

Locally, this had a ripple effect on prices of fuel late last year as it sold for about GHS4.8 per litre, but this price shot up to about 5.1 litres per litre in January this year.

Last week Friday, a number of Oil marketing companies further increased their prices with some currently selling at about GHS5.35 per litre, although there still are some selling at GHS4.7 per litre.