Foreign exchange payments and subsidies provided by the Ghana government are helping to overcome fuel shortages that have hampered the country for more than a week. The subsidies should help distributors to buy more oil from other countries.
Filling stations in Ghana began receiving gasoline shipments after the government released 9 million liters of its strategic reserves of petroleum products to relieve gasoline shortages in the country.
In addition, the government paid €1.09 million (US1.49 million) of foreign exchange (forex) subsidies owed to the country’s bulk oil distribution companies (BDCs). It also facilitated a $1 million forex cover to the BDCs, and through both measures the companies were able to obtain letters of credit from the banks for petroleum-products imports, according to Tank Storage Magazine.
In a statement, the government expressed regret for the inconvenience caused to motorists by the shortage. The government had been asked to take the steps necessary to address issues that lead to intermittent fuel shortages.
Government spokesperson Kwakye Ofosu said a total of 50 million liters of fuel would be pumped into the system in the next 10 days to ease the nationwide fuel shortage.
In a GhanaWeb.com report, Senyo Hosi, CEO of the Ghana Chamber of BDCs, said the issues were systemic and that it would take government to spearhead efforts to solve them. “Why are we creating the debt? Why are the banks losing confidence in funding the sector? Has it got to do with the rising subsidy? Has it got to do with unpaid subsidies?” Hosi reportedly asked during a local television station interview.
Hosi also raised concerns that some oil-marketing companies were hoarding gasoline. “You can’t do that to your own people. What kind of state are we trying to grow? We want to try to commercially milk the people. When you see people suffering, you still want to hoard. I don’t think that person deserves to be called a Ghanaian,” he said in the GhanaWeb.com report.
Also in the report, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, minister of energy and petroleum, said the government intended to continue to supply fuel. “We are not relenting at all [but] basically doubling supply that normally goes into the market until we are very sure that products are in the market and people are comfortable,” he said.
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