Minority is politicising oil prices

Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, Minister of Energy, has said the Minority was playing politics with the petroleum pricing formula in calling for fuel price reduction following the fall in the world market price of crude oil.

He said the use of the formula and transactions in the oil trade were complex issues and it was not just enough to assert that because crude prices had fallen ex-pump prices should automatically fall.

He was speaking to newsmen on Wednesday in Parliament in an interview on the claim by the Minority that the 53 billion cedis he gave, as savings from the windfall was too low and that it could be more.

Mr Kan-Dapaah said the Ministry arrived at the figure by basing its calculation on the government's petroleum pricing formula and that the 53 billion cedis savings to the state was yet to be transferred to government.

He said the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) was yet to reconcile its accounts with the Ministry on the actual benefits accruing to the state from the windfall.

"It is not that the 53 billion cedis is either with the government or with anybody, who wanted to play any funny tricks".

He said government would stick to its guns not to reduce the fuel prices merely on the basis of the current trend in crude price, adding: "We would use the windfall to pay off the TOR's debt of 2.3 trillion cedis."

The Minority had claimed that the sale of petrol alone excluding kerosene and LPG by TOR fetched the state about 19.6 billion cedis per month and multiplying the figure for the period of more than six months that the world market price had been favourable the nation should have bagged around 100 billion cedis.