The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers Ghana (COPEC), says it will not rule out the possibility of going to court to compel Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) in the country to reduce fuel ex-pump prices at the pumps to reflect the recent sustained decline in the global crude oil prices.

The threat comes after a conflict over crude oil prices between Saudi Arabia and Russia pushed the global price of crude oil down by almost 30 percent, the lowest in four years

According to COPEC, consumers could be benefitting from a reduction of between 10%-32% compared to the 2% that consumers have been given over the past few weeks.

In an earlier statement, signed by the organisation’s research secretary, Benjamin Nsiah and copied to soireenews.com, COPEC noted that in spite of the significant decline in global crude prices, Ghanaian consumers have not yet benefitted as fuel prices remain within same margins.

“The Chamber found that international market prices on the average have cumulatively declined by between 10% to 32.03% between January and March, 2020, the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) on its website duly acknowledges that prices have declined by 9.65% between the last pricing window in February and the first pricing window March 2020 alone yet Ghanaian consumers have hardly seen anything beyond 1% within the period of reductions.”.

In an interview with Citi News, the Executive Director of COPEC, Duncan Amoah, said he will be compelled to go to the court if OMCs do not reduce their fuel prices by end of this week.

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“We are saying that there is every justification for the prices at the pumps to be reduced. If this is not done by the end of the week, we will have no option but to go to court. I don’t think the court will allow the OMCs to cheat the public,” he said.

COPEC is specifically looking at a 10 percent reduction in petroleum prices at the pumps.

“If we use today’s price, then the fall in the International price of crude oil is more than 50 percent since the beginning of the year. We have seen also the cedi appreciate also for more than 5.6 percent from the beginning of the year, yet the local price has not gone down by more than 5 percent from the beginning of the year,” Mr. Amoah argued.

“That is woefully inadequate. So, one would have expected that these two key variables, the international price of crude oil and also the local currency’s appreciation against the US dollar would have given consumers some form of relief, and we thought that if prices go down, then, of course, it goes to support positively the disposable income of Ghanaians,” he added.

He says the argument that a reduction may be too early since the prices of crude change rapidly, is not tenable because OMCs do not wait for a longer time to increase prices when it is in their interest.