A Legal Practitioner, Kwame Jantuah, has called for a lasting solution to the challenges of the country with reference to the increasing petroleum prices in the country.
Speaking to Francis Abban on Morning Starr Friday, Mr Jantuah called on Ghanaians to brace themselves for a difficult Christmas season as a result of rising fuel prices in the country.
“Because when the price of petrol goes up, food prices also go up, everything goes up. Even when there is a reduction in oil prices whereby we can also get a reduction we don’t get that reduction, they are hedge.
“One of the problems is the continuous capping of the Stabilization Fund, because the Stabilization Fund is to support the budget. Right now, the government has a wind-fall with regards to oil prices because the bunch mark was 57, that is what the budget was worked on, petrol price is now 88, that is a huge sum of money,” he said.
One other area Mr. Jantuah said has contributed to the woes of Ghanaians has been the problem of paying interest on the loans successive governments have gone for.
“Apart from 60% of our money paying 650,000 public sector workers we still have to pay our loans. So part of that money has to go in there which doesn’t help to ameliorate the plight of the ordinary Ghanaian. And unfortunately this Christmas, it’s going to be very difficult,” he predicted.
Lawyer Jantuah called on the government to look for a permanent solution in resolving the challenge of fuel prices rather than the habit of reducing it during Christmas which Ghanaians would have to still pay at a later time.
“Even if petrol price is going to go up, it should not go up 30 times, this year petrol price has gone up 30 times. How do we survive? Perhaps it tells us something about the economy we have today.
We need a system where people will be prepared to park their cars and jump onto public transport. With all this, we all need to sit and think on how we are going to solve the public transport system. To start with, we have narrow roads, we have sold lands that could span these roads. Because even if you want dedicated roads for public transport it’s going to be difficult.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM
