The Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), Duncan Amoah has called on the government to review its decision and focus on the smaller Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) to keep them in business.
He said the smaller OMCs mostly are found in the rural communities where bigger OMCs do not want to establish their firms for fear of not making profit.
” If you are rolling out a policy and you want the impact to be felt. It should rather go to the very poor. Where do these smaller OMCs usually have their stations? In the rural communities, mostly often where the bigger boys would not be willing to site stations because they are unable to probably make as much profit, ” Duncan Amoah mentioned.
His comments come on the back of the National Petroleum Authority’s decision to distribute petroleum products under the Gold for Oil program to Oil Marketing Companies with 45 or more retail outlets across the country to ensure that the impact of the Gold For Oil is felt massively by Ghanaians at the pumps.
Duncan Amoah said that government interference in the downstream petroleum sector is a recipe for destruction.
“And so if you crowd out the smaller stations in the name of bigger impact, the real impact would be living in communities that have just one filling station serving an entire community.
If you cut them out, what other impact are you looking for again? We need to review, revise and tinker slowly,” He mentioned.
