Ghana is planning to digitise the distribution of premix fuel, Vice President discloses

The Vice President of the country, Dr Bawumia disclosed the information when he gave the Opening Address at the 3rd Ghana International Petroleum Conference (GhipCon) in Accra on Wednesday, July 10, 2019.

According to him, introducing digital technologies in premix distribution will ensure that fisherfolk, for whom the product is subsidised and provided for, actually get it.

“We have to increasingly leverage the digital technologies that are available to increase efficiency in the downstream petroleum sector. One of the areas that we have been discussing and have taken a decision on is, for example, the distribution of premix fuel in Ghana amongst the fishermen,” he said.

He added that “This is an area that has really been a challenging one because there are subsidies to premix fuel, and whenever there are subsidies, the distribution of the product tends to create economic rents, and when it creates these rents all sorts of people come in the middle and the fishermen, for whom this is designed, ultimately don’t even get the product because the products are smuggled and sold to other people who may not even be fishermen at higher prices.

“So, we’ve been looking at this issue, and we’ve decided that the best way to deal with this is to digitise the process so that we can be able to direct the subsidy to each boat that is registered. We’ve registered all the boats, and we will implement a digitisation process in the distribution of premix in Ghana soon, and we hope to extend it also to fertilizer in the next year as well. Digitisation will also end the politicisation of premix distribution,” the Vice President concluded.