GPRTU to reduce transport fares if fuel prices fall below 20%

The Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) has said it will not reduce transport fares until government, through the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) meets its demands to reduce the price of fuel by some 20%.

The assertion by the GPRTU follows the reduction in fuel prices at the various pumps on the back of a directive by the National Petroleum Authority to reduce petrol by 35 pesewas.

Currently, petrol is selling at GHC 10.95 whereas diesel is selling at GHC 13.26 at the pumps of leading oil marketing companies.

“Before we came up with the 20% increment that was in May, there has been so many increment in different ways.

“So, if the NPA will be in a position to reduce to where we where before we came up with the 20% then of course that will attract a decrease in lorry fare,” said the Public Relations Officer of the GPRTU, Abass Imoro.

Fuel prices fall

Prices of petroleum products dropped between 3% and 6% as of August 1, 2022, marking the second consecutive decline in retail costs of fuel since oil prices began to fall on the global market.

According to the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), the expected reduction would have been bigger but for the depreciation of the Ghana cedi against the US dollar.

“What we picked from the market for the first window of August [2022] is an indication that prices at the pumps should have gone down significantly,” said the executive secretary of COPEC, Duncan Amoah. “The unfortunate thing at this point happens to be with the currency [the cedi].

“As I speak with you, over the two-week window, the forex [rate] has seen some depreciation,” he said.

Checks indicate that at the pumps on Monday, petrol dropped by 0.35 pesewas in price and is now retailing for less than GHC11 (currently GHC10.95), while diesel is selling for GHC13.26, a 0.36 pesewa decrease.

The head of pricing at the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Abass Ibrahim Tasunti, gave Ghanaians his assurance that the NPA will be monitoring prices at the pump to see if filling stations are complying with the pricing formula in changing their advertised charges.

“The fuel price changes are influenced by changes of the price on the world market and the exchange rate in particular,” he said. “We have seen reductions at the pump in the past one month purely because the world market prices have dropped.

“In the next window in which we are going into, we have observed that the price[s] of petrol and diesel have gone down again, and therefore we expect some price reductions at the pump in the next window, which starts from 1 August,” Tasunti said.

Source: norvanreports