Expert to BoG: Assist BDCs with dollars to avert looming fuel shortage
His call comes amidst report by Bloomberg that Ghana faces looming fuel shortage as the central bank rations dollars after oil prices surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Dr Theo Acheampong, an international petroleum economist based in the United Kingdom has called on the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to make available dollars for the Bulk Oil Distribution Companies (BDCs) to avert any looming fuel shortage.
His call comes amidst report by Bloomberg that Ghana faces looming fuel shortage as the central bank rations dollars after oil prices surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking to sit-in host of the Asaase Breakfast Show, Benjamin Offei-Addo on Wednesday(22 June), Acheampong described Ghana’s three-month import cover as very worrying.
“I think it is two-fold, one is the public communications management aspect of things; so I expect the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation(BOST), the National Petroleum Authority(NPA) and the Ministry of Energy public relations management to issue various statement telling Ghanaians about the situation.”
“And what steps they are taking to ameliorate it, including the fact that we have some stock to last us a while. And secondly, the difficult choice, which is ,the Bank of Ghana (BoG) would have to make a bit more dollars available to the Bulk Oil Distribution Companies (BDCs) to meet import requirement in the short term,” Acheampong said.
The petroleum economist also advised government to facilitate process towards the revamping of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) to help address the challenge.
“If we do not solve in a holistic manner the fuel sectors teething issues … we will continue to use our hard earned money for fuel importation. If we do not sort out the fundamental issues like local processing [of fuel] then we will only be dealing with the periphery of issues,” he said.
Listen to Dr Theo Acheampong in the video below:
Fred Dzakpata
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