CJA CONDEMNS FUEL PRICE INCREMENT

CJA CONDEMNS FUEL PRICE INCREMENT

Pressure group, Committee for Joint Action (CJA) says it is shocked by recent increase of the prices of petroleum products by the government.

The group  is therefore calling on government to reverse its decision on fuel price increases since it  has a ripple effect throughout the economy .

The government of Ghana through the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), announced a 15%  to 20% increment on  the cost of fuel.

But in a statement signed by the convenor for  the Committee for Joint Action, Kwasi Adu, the increases in fuel prices betray the principles which underlined the election campaign of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in 2004 and 2008.

According to the group, it is an “indication of the growing insensitivity of the Ghanaian political elite to the worsening plight of the working people and the underprivileged”.

In the view of the group, the NDC administration is today repeating the same justification put forward by the erstwhile John Agyenkum Kufour government for fuel price increases.

These justifications, the group said have ranged from the need to remove imaginary subsidies to the imperative of combating fuel smuggling across Ghana’s borders.

“The claim that Government is subsidising the prices of petroleum products is at best fraudulent having regard to the numerous taxes which have been imposed on the products. In making this claim the CJA has also taken into account the fact that ex-refinery prices used in calculating ex-pump prices are assumed and could be far away from real cost”. The statement said.