According to the LPG Marketers Association, the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) will increase by around 40 pesewas per kilo starting Monday.
After a rise of 18 pesewas per kilo in May this year, the price of gas, which is utilized in most households, will be raised for the second time this year.
This is despite the Ministry of Energy and the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) announcing that price stabilization and recovery levies (PSRL) on petroleum goods would be removed for the next two months.
Consumers of LPG will benefit from the suspension of the PSRL because it would save them 14 pesewa. Associative reaction However, Mr. Gabriel Kumi, Vice-President of the LPG Marketers Association, said in an interview in Accra that the planned suspension of the PSRL should not be taken too seriously because it had little impact on the cost of LPG.
“Obviously, any initiative that helps consumers by lowering prices is supported by our organization.
“If you take a commodity like LPG, for example, the price of LPG was expected to go up by 40 to 50 pesewas per kilo yesterday, which was the start of the next window.
“Now the price stabilisation levy is about 14 pesewas, so even if the government succeeded in implementing the price stabilisation levy yesterday, what it means is that the price of LPG is going to go up by about 26 pesewas to 30 pesewas,” he said.
Mr. Kumi further indicated that “per our projection, by December 2021, if we don’t take serious measures to reduce the price of LPG we would be buying gas at about GH¢10 per kilo”.
ACEP’s call
Meanwhile, the African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) has urged the government to use the GH948 million in the PSRL account to provide urgent relief to petroleum users.
Mr. Benjamin Boakye, Executive Director of the energy sector think tank, who made the call, said it was vital to use the accumulated balance to cushion consumers from the present high oil prices because the levy was designed to reduce the burden of increasing petroleum costs on the public.
In reaction to the National Petroleum Authority’s (NPA) decision to zero-rate the PSRL on gasoline, diesel, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for the next two months, he made the call. Fuel prices have been raised to reflect the global rise in crude oil costs and the cedi’s depreciation.
The PSRL was created in 2015 as part of the Energy Sector Levies Act (ESLA) (Act 899).
