NDC rejects petroleum price increases

Accra, Jan. 18, GNA - The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority in Parliament, on Saturday expressed their outrage and total rejection of the petroleum price increases announced by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Administration and challenged the government to publish the full cost build-up for the newly announced ex-pump prices.

"We are on the firm conviction that the level of the recently announced petroleum prices are unjustifiable especially in the light of the accusations of waste, inefficiency and corruption leveled by the President against the management of TOR."

"Just as we did with the IFC loan, we are requesting the NPP Government to roll back on the announced petroleum price increases before it is too late because the adverse effects of these increases will far outweigh any short-term benefits Government hopes to gain from them."

"We also advise government to urgently sit down with the leadership of other political parties and social partners to urgently review the situation and agree on realistic but affordable prices for petroleum prices."

A statement issued in Accra and signed by Hon. E.K. Doe-Adjaho, Minority Chief whip, said these increases would inflict unimaginable hardship on the disadvantaged rural and urban poor population and would also put undue pressure on industry and commerce.

"The increase of almost 100 percent in the case of petrol and only a little less in the case of all the other petroleum products, are the most unprecedented in the colonial and post-independence history of this country," the Minority said.

"Not even at the height of the Gulf War in 1991, when crude oil prices rose from a previous low of 10 pounds sterling per barrel to over 40 pounds sterling per barrel, did the then Government raise petroleum prices by as much as 100 per cent."

It said the increase in the price of kerosene was not only anti-people, especially for the most vulnerable groups, but appeared almost deliberately designed to take life out of the rural communities.

"Indeed it is the greatest paradox of our history, that persons who proclaimed to champion the interest of the ordinary people of this country while in opposition by organising massive demonstrations against policies of the previous government, are today while in government, inflicting such cruelty on the same people."

The statement said compared to these consequences, the gimmicks alongside the increases such as the proposed wage freeze for members of the executive and the reduction in their fuel allocations appeared almost insulting.

"Clearly the new prices have no relationship with the previously announced petroleum price fixing formula or with the fraudulent "so-called TOR debt. We are also aware that the new prices have a hidden VAT adjustment."

It said pressured by IMF and the World Bank to increase the VAT rate but unable to do so because of its historical antipathy to VAT and haunted by the twin ghosts of the "Ku Me Preko and Ya Bre demonstrations, the NPP had opted for political and economically suicidal path of achieving its revenue mobilisation targets through such callous increases in petroleum prices.