The Association of Oil Marketing Companies (AOMC) has expressed worries about the state of pricing of Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) in the country.
The Oil Marketing Companies is an industry association and a private initiative by the oil marketing operators in Ghana since 2003.
It is also an advocacy institution established to help direct downstream policy, legislation, and regulation and pursue research towards the development of the downstream sector of oil.
According to the Association, the pricing of the LPG commodity has led to many more Ghanaians buying the product for cooking among others in bits by bits, in what is referred to in Ghanaian parlance as tots.
The Association revealed that as the price of LPG kept going up in Ghana, the price is relatively cheaper in Nigeria in recent times.
‘More and more people in Nigerians are now using LPG unlike the early years when Ghana introduced LPG, Nigerians were hooked onto Charcoal, the Association added that the situation has overtime become a worrying trend for marketers in the country.
Mr. Kwaku Agyemang -Duah, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AOMC expressed this worry about the pricing of the household commodity at media soiree organized by the Association on the topic: Progress, Emerging Challenges and the way forward” to throw more lights on the operations of the Oil Marketing Companies in the country.
He said over the years the product is becoming cheaper in Nigeria and very expensive in Ghana leading to many Ghanaians domestic users going back to the use of Charcoal.
He stressed that the price build-up on the commodity has led to people buying the product in tots because filing up the cylinder in recent times is a difficult thing to do.
He noted that is a bit of a challenge to see Ghanaians revert to the use of Charcoal when Ghana was a leader in the introduction of LPG for domestic use in the West African Sub-region.
Speaking on the components on the pricing of fuel products in the country, he said there are about fourteen components on the ex-pump price of fuel products in the country.
The head of the association with a membership drive of about one hundred and fifty-six mentioned the components as Ex-Refinery Price, BOST Margin, Energy Debt Recovery Levy, Road Fund Levy, Special Petroleum Tax, UPP (Depot to the retail centre), Marketers Margin, Dealers Margin, Indicative Maximum Price (ex-pump price) and Energy Fund Levy.
Others are Price Stabilization and Recovery Levy, Primary Distribution Margin, Fuel Marking Levy and Ex-Depot.
There is the marketers cost as well which happens to be the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) permit, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permit, Stool lands permit, safety assurance, copyrights and in recent times National Disaster Management(NADMO) even though it has been shot down by the leadership of the association all these he noted forms part of the price build-up for petroleum products in the country.
In spite of all these the association is committed to seeing prices come down hence the need for members to keep reducing the marketers’ cost other than that a litre of petrol may be sold at Five Cedis going by the cost involved in bringing the products to the doorsteps of the customer.
Touching on the association’s contribution to the development of the country, he said every month a whopping amount of Five Hundred million GHS leading to a bi-annual tax of Three billion GHS is contributed to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) irrespective of the fact that products have been sold or not.
So, members have to borrow from the banks to make their tax obligations to the government before they can even declare profit, it is on this premise he argued that the association is in talks with GRA to waive the terms of payment.
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