Strengthen the cedi to curb rising fuel prices - COPEC

The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) has called on the government to prioritize the strengthening of the Ghana cedi to help combat the escalating costs of fuel.

The recent weeks have seen a significant drop in fuel prices, a situation which has been worsened by the removal of the suspension of the Price Stabilization and Recovery Levy.

The Executive Secretary of COPEC, Duncan Amoah, speaking on Citi FM and Citi TV's The Big Issue, attributed the surge in fuel prices to the cedi's depreciation.

He urged the government to replicate the measures taken before August 2022, when similar economic strategies successfully mitigated fuel price hikes, with diesel and petrol prices exceeding GH¢21.

Amoah recalled how the Bank of Ghana managed to counter the cedi's fall to nearly GH¢17 against the dollar, bringing it back to GH¢12.

“The cedi had also depreciated to almost GH¢17 exchange to a dollar and the Bank of Ghana for whatever magic, was able to reverse the depreciation back to GH¢12 and so if you have any of those things down your sleeve, there could be no better time to apply that kind of a solution than at this point when prices are simply going up daily.

He acknowledged that while Ghana cannot control international conflicts or tax policies, it can and should prevent the cedi from weakening further.

“At this point, taxes cannot be taken, give or take, we cannot influence Israel on Iran, we cannot influence Ukraine from bombing Russian refineries. What we can do at this point is to ensure that our cedi is not doing too badly, as we have seen in the past few weeks.

“Once that happens, you are simply hanging yourself in the face of global market price trends and throwing your hands in despair,” he said.

ID/AE

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