The National Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi has questioned why government continuously want Ghanaians to pay sanitation and pollution levy added to the price of petroleum products.
Speaking to TV3 in an interview, the NDC firebrand noted that some of the levies on petroleum products in the country must be abolished in this period of economic hardships, insisting that they don’t make sense.
“Some of the taxes don’t make sense. In this time of economic difficulty we should not be paying a 10 pesewas sanitation and pollution, I call it ‘borla’ levy, on a litre of diesel and petrol, we don’t need a BOST margin of 9 pesewas,” Sammy Gyamfi shared.
According to him, should the government take steps to remove some of the taxes on petroleum products, the prices of fuel at the local pumps would come down to mitigate the hardships on the citizenry.
“Most of these taxes, 80 to 90 per cent of these taxes are not needed now. Special Petroleum Tax, former President Mahama introduced it at the time the international market price was going down. We said we were going to collect it for just two years and when the international market prices go up, we will bring it back.
“At the time the international market price had gone down below 30 dollars and so we were losing in terms of our oil exports. Now, the prices have gone up to about 100 and 120 dollars per barrel when this year 2022, we benchmarked it at 61 dollars per barrel. If we are to scrap these taxes, I tell you, that the litre of diesel and petrol will come down by minimum GHS1,” Sammy Gyamfi noted.
After several prices hikes at the local pumps since the start of the year, the prices of fuel have now crossed GHS10 per litre mark.
