As a first step towards the full implementation of the National Petroleum Authority's (NPA) petroleum product price deregulation, all Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs), from June 2015, were authorised to announce their ex-pump prices for petroleum products.
The deregulation policy is expected to allow marketers and importers of petroleum products to set their own prices and bring an end to government subsidy on the commodity.
For a developing nation like Ghana, never mind our so-called lower middle income status, the removal of government subsidy on a volatile commodity like petroleum is not the way to go, if the national cake is to benefit a wider population of the poor.
However, following the partial implementation of the deregulation of the petroleum downstream sector by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), the nation has witnessed back-to-back fuel increments over a period of one month.
We have been told that the major determinant of the fuel deregulation policy is the prevailing world market price of oil, and the value of the local currency against the major trading currencies. The recent price adjustments, which resulted in fuel price hikes in Ghana, were done on the back of a plummeting world market price of oil.