Fuel Price hike: Let us give the government the leeway to develop – Dr Kwaku Mensah Mawutor

The senior lecturer for UPSA says Ghanaians should understand the situation and hold the government to a level of accountability.

In the recent drastic increase of taxes on petroleum products, Kwaku Mensah Mawutor has said that Currently, we are not in normal times since globally the world has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

He stated that the factors that influence prices of oil are not only on the world market but the exchange rate also contributes to the increase of fuel prices and any time cedi depreciates against the dollar it affects pricing since we use the dollar to buy fuel.

“People are calling for development in the country and government needs to raise funds to provide these developments. We are caught up between asking the government to remove taxes and halt development else we must go for loans which are impossible because currently, the country is not in its right state to borrow money since the rating mark are diminishing. It has become risky because the interest rate is now expensive and Ghana’s interest rate is about 50% of our revenue,” he said.

Speaking on Amansan Ntie, Dr. Kwaku Mensah Mawuli said we need to help stabilize the economy to help strengthen the developments in the country. “We need to tighten our belts and help in stabilizing the economy”.

According to him, there’s hedging in the oil industry, and both the currencies and oil price can be hedged, government can however help make oil companies hedge foreign currencies where prices will be stabilized and not be influenced by any change but can’t reduce tax since it will affect the income taxes.

We should give the government the leeway to develop in the midst of hardship. The government has played a role to help ease some burden during the outbreak of the pandemic ( free water and light) and all these have, however, become a depth to the government, however, it’s about to pay for these depths.

Government has to pay for water to ease the burden of the people because of covid and all these have affected the government, it’s time to pay for what you enjoyed last year and the privileges you enjoy now will be paid in the years to come” I am not been insensitive but let’s allow the market to play” he added.

Dr Kwaku Mensah Mawuli, therefore, called on all Ghanaians to understand the situation in hand.

Source: Kessbenonline.com/ Eunice Odai .