Chamber of Petroleum Consumers threaten court action if oil companies fail to reduce fuel prices

This is coming after a conflict over crude oil prices between Saudi Arabia and Russia caused global prices to fall by almost 30%, the lowest in four years

Due to the fall in price on the global market, COPEC called on OMCs to reduce their fuel prices. COPEC stated that the reduction is in line with the deregulation policy which allows fuel stations to increase their prices when the price goes up and vice versa.

In an interview with Accra-based Citi FM, the Executive Director of COPEC, Duncan Amoah, said he will be forced to go to court if OMCs fail to reduce their fuel prices by end of this week.

“We are saying that there is every justification for the prices at the pumps to be reduced. If this is not done by the end of the week, we will have no option but to go to the court. I don’t think the court will allow the OMCs to cheat the public.”

“If we use today’s price, then the fall in the International price of crude oil is more than 50 percent since the beginning of the year. We have seen also the cedi appreciate also for more than 5.6 percent from the beginning of the year, yet the local price has not gone down by more than 5 percent from the beginning of the year,” Mr Amoah argued.

“That is woefully inadequate. So, one would have expected that these two key variables, the international price of crude oil and also the local currency’s appreciation against the US dollar would have given consumers some form of relief, and we thought that if prices go down, then, of course, it goes to support positively the disposable income of Ghanaians,” he added.

He said that the argument that it is too early for a reduction is not tenable because OMCs do not wait for a longer time to increase prices when it is in their interest.