Four Civil Society Organisations, including IMANI Africa and the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), have proposed a “cumulative reduction of GHC1.65 from the current petroleum price build-up” as part of government efforts to cushion Ghanaians.
The proposal follows President John Dramani Mahama’s directive to the Finance and Energy Ministers to scrap some taxes on fuel to ease the burden on citizens, due to the price hikes resulting from tensions in the Middle East.
President Mahama, following the astronomical hike in global crude oil prices, convened an emergency Cabinet meeting to propose measures to bring prices down and bring some relief to the public.
Ahead of the adjustment, the four CSOs, including INSTEPR and IES, in a press statement issued on Tuesday, April 14, 2026, indicated that “while some of us in the Civil Society space believe that the relief should be substantial given the level of tolerated waste across the downstream petroleum ecosystem, it must nevertheless lead to a sudden corrosive effect on operations and sustainability of the petroleum subsector.”
The group says after conducting extensive consultations, they propose the said amount for a period of two months, instead of the four weeks the government mentioned earlier.
“We propose a cumulative reduction of GHC1.65 from the current petroleum price build up which should last for a period of TWO months instead of the FOUR weeks proposed by the government. We can then review the interventions again as they relate to the global world order,” the statement contained.
They say the “recommendation should not over burden the country’s fiscal space as we are also minded by the fact government will be getting a significant windfall from the country’s upstream crude production and exports within this given period.”
They further proposed to the Ministries of Finance and Energy, what they described as a much more comprehensive solution to the perennial fuel price escalations by seeing to the following;
- A more comprehensive rationalisation of all existing taxes, levies and margins with the aim to permanently removing all that are a drag on individual and national resources.
- Create a Strategic Reserve Fund by revisiting some of the levies proposed for review above (whose revenues could be utilised at all times in the purchase and storage of real time fuel that can be used to positively intervene in the domestic market when the unforeseen happens.
- Modernisation and retooling of the country’s refinery and storage space by committing to make adequate investment’s in the country’s major oil refinery (TOR) and BOST such that, TOR together with the other refineries will be in a much better position to refine the country’s crude liftings and BOST would have the needed infrastructure to store more.
CEMSE urges Government to scrap BOST margin in fuel price build-up
