The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors, Senyo Hosi has stated that his outfit together with all stakeholders is working to avoid any fuel shortage in the country.
He made this statement in response to a Bloomberg report that the country will face a shortage of fuel in the coming months.
He said this in an interview on Tuesday where he explained that the government of Ghana anticipated that there will be a fuel shortage and that it is working effortlessly to avoid fuel shortage in the country.
“We are collective as an industry, the Central Bank and the Energy Ministry and the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) are working to address and mitigate that future risk.”
“The Central Bank since March has been taking a very proactive intervention for our market but that also is limited. It started with about 50 percent of our requirement and now I think they have scaled down to about 20 and 25 percent of our requirement.”
Senyo, Hosi admitted that there are challenges in the world fuel market and that of Ghana but the country has fuel in stock that can last a month and over so there is no course for alarm in the country. “There is the risk of a crisis but we don’t have a crisis. That crisis will always exist provided these factors are examined.
“We have stocks to last you a month and a few more to come but that does not mean that there is enough comfort or certainty from the international market when they are seeing challenges with us making good our dollar payment,” he said.
Bloomberg reported that the monthly fuel import for Ghana jumped from $250million in January to $450 million. The report added that the central bank offered only $100 million a month and the licensed distributors can no longer plug the shortfall in the black market.
People who are well abreast with the oil market stated that the Central Bank of Ghana is reluctant to spend its limited dollar reserve on importing fuel though the bank is always looking for ways to boost the foreign exchange. The bank’s reserves dropped from $9.7 billion at the end of last year to $8.34 billion at the end of April this year.
Bloomberg’s report revealed that the cedi has weakened 22% against the dollar this year.