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The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers Ghana has described the incessant hike in fuel prices in recent times as a threat to the deregulation exercise.

The comment comes on the back of the 9% increase in petroleum prices on January 4, 2017.

“The previous window of December 16th saw between 4-6% hikes due to the poor performance of the Cedi and world market prices having shot up from around $51-$56/ barrel at the time”, the Chamber said in a statement.

“Fairness has always been important in a deregulated market and we will continue to stress on the need for absolute fairness as far as the Ghanaian economic situation is concerned, we insist that per all reasonable calculations fuel prices do not need to go any figure above 5% for this particular window,” the statement added.

Deregulating the petroleum sector was to allow petroleum importers and marketers to reduce their price as well as pull in more private players into the sector.

But the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers Ghana believes the aim will not be met if the hike persists.