Amin Adam urges review of fuel taxes as diesel still tops GH₵17 a litre

Pinned summary · as of 06:02

Dr Mohammed Amin Adam, a former finance minister who is now Ranking Member on Parliament's Finance Committee, wants the government to take a fresh look at the taxes and levies charged on petroleum products. In a Facebook post, he argued that the temporary cut on diesel has done too little to lighten the load on consumers.

What we know

• Amin Adam wants ministers to re-examine what is charged on petroleum products and to think about pausing or scrapping the latest increases, so that consumers get more relief.
• He said diesel pump prices remained in a band from GH₵17.55 to GH₵18.99 even after the state's GH₵2 intervention, which in his view has not eased household and business costs enough.
• “What we need now is a comprehensive intervention by the government,” Amin Adam said, describing the temporary relief as inadequate.
• He argued that a GH₵1 levy on every litre of fuel, introduced by the government, has cancelled out part of the diesel relief.
• Amin Adam also pointed to higher levies on fuel oil, which he said push up operating costs for industry and power producers.
• In his view the cedi's 12% slide since the start of the year is another reason pump prices remain high, because Ghana pays for petroleum products on international markets and so feels every move in the exchange rate.
• He held up tax relief measures taken under the previous NPP administration as a model for what could be done now.

What's disputed / unconfirmed

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  MyNewsGH reported that Amin Adam called the diesel relief a stop-gap, quasi-fiscal step that merely squeezed margins at two bodies, BOST (the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company) and the UPPF (Unified Petroleum Price Fund). No other report carries this description.
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  MyNewsGH quoted Amin Adam as saying the GH₵1 levy wiped out half of the GH₵2 relief, while Onua Online said only that the levy partly offset it. The exact share has not been settled in the other reports.
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  According to MyNewsGH, Amin Adam listed NPP-era steps that included dropping the excise tax on fuel, lowering the Special Petroleum Tax from 17.5% to 15% and later to 13%, switching it from an ad valorem to a specific tax, and zero-rating the Price Stabilisation and Recovery Levy for a long spell. These are his own account and no other report has verified them.
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  MyNewsGH also reported his claim that the Gold for Oil programme, which he called revolutionary, pulled fuel prices from above GH₵20 to GH₵11, and that most NPP measures were lasting because they were backed by law and paid for from the budget. Only that publication carried these claims.
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  MyNewsGH further reported Amin Adam's argument that Ghana has little say over world petroleum prices, leaving tax policy and management of the exchange rate as the tools ministers actually control, and that the same price mechanism applied under the previous government as it does today. This has not been repeated elsewhere.

Why it matters for Ghana

Diesel drives trotros, freight trucks, generators and farm machinery, so its price feeds into transport fares and the cost of goods from Accra to Kumasi and beyond. If Amin Adam's account of the levies and the cedi holds, drivers, traders and households have felt less benefit from the GH₵2 cut than its size suggests.