BoG must cushion BDCs with some dollars to avert looming fuel shortage - Expert

Fuel shortage looming, Bloomberg

Revive TOR, Expert

Fuel issues must be dealt with holistically, Expert

Petroleum economist, Dr. Theo Acheampong, has called on the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to cushion the Bulk Oil Distribution Companies (BDCs) by providing some dollars to aid the purchase of fuel in order to avert the looming danger of fuel shortage.

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Read full articlecomes after Bloomberg’s prediction of an impending fuel shortage in Ghana following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking on Asaase News, the economist noted that Ghana’s three months import cover is not sufficient for the country.

“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 statements 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 however reiterated calls for the revival of the Tema Oil Refinery.

“If we do not solve in a holistic manner the fuel sector 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.

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