Stabilize cedi before it badly affects fuel prices – COPEC

The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers Ghana (COPEC) has asked the government to work to stabilize the exchange rate in order to avoid fuel prices increasing.

Executive Director of COPEC, Duncan Amoah, noted that the recent hike in the fuel prices is as a result of, among other things, the weak cedi.

To further prevent the fuel prices from going up, Mr. Amoah said there is the need to tackle the free fall of the cedi against the major trading currencies especially the dollar.

“There are drivers that move fuel prices either down or up. There is also the demand-supply which is the global function on the international market.

“And then, the fact that we buy this commodity in dollars. We cannot price it in dollars in Ghana because we have a legal tender which is the Cedi. So, that conversion between the dollar and the Ghanaian Cedi is where the cedi’s strength comes to play. But the Cedi is also not stable especially when importers will apply what we call the forward forecast,” he said

He added: “You cannot continue to charge the trotro or taxi driver more, anytime your cedi performs poorly. You cannot also continue to expect that the system will be sustained.

“Not long ago, the Bank of Ghana started the dollar auctioning. We think they should factor petroleum importers and give them some standard rate quarterly.

“That way they will be delinking the cedi’s performance to the dollar from impacting on the fuel pricing.”