National Petroleum Authority (NPA) has highlighted the critical effect of the government’s flagship Gold for Oil Policy in guaranteeing security of fuel supply in Ghana.
Head of Planning at the National Petroleum Authority, Mr. Dominic Aboagye, said the policy has been effective, expressing costs of oil based goods over the period has been very steady.
“Look at last year where prices were but now you can see how prices have been quite stable at a certain figure around 11, 12 cedis, we’ve seen stock levels increased”
The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia in 2022 announced a new government policy christened Gold for Oil (G4O).
The policy, as explained by the government, is to allow the government to pay for imported oil products with gold, in a direct barter with gold purchased by the Central Bank.
The move, was announced by the Vice President in the midst of the depreciation of the cedi against the US dollar and the rising cost of fuel prices, was explained as an intervention to help stabilise prices of fuel products, as well as reduce pressure on Ghana’s foreign exchange, as the direct gold barter would be the mode of paying for imported oil instead of depleting the foreign exchange reserve
Mr. Aboagya explained the gold for oil arrangement plan sort of de-risk the Ghana markings thus a ton of global providers then saw the opportunity in doing business with Ghana in light of the fact that the risk had been moderated and underscored this has subsequently expanded supplies to the country.
As indicated by him, toward the start of the attack of Ukraine by Russia, the nation’s stock had dropped yet contended that the origin of the policy has set off some type of competition among different global providers.
“…Yes indeed, the Russia invasion of Ukraine poses a geopolitical risk to fuel supply to Ghana. As I indicated in my presentation, Ghana finds itself in an import situation where we import most of the petroleum products consumed in the country. In fact, the region where we predominantly get our products from is Europe. Europe is also a continent that sources a lot of its products from Russia and so with the invasion and the sanctions that were imposed on Russia obviously was going to posed a threat to supply to Europe and it would have a ripple effect on countries in Africa like Ghana” he stated.
“A number of actions and interventions have been made just to ensure the country continuous to have a sustained supply of fuel.”
