Finance Minister, Seth Tekper has denied claims that government hid cost of subsidies on government expenditure and its intention to increase fuel prices from Ghanaians.
According to him, government and the key stakeholders in the petroleum sector did not spring the fuel price increment on the Ghanaian consumer saying, “I do admit that now we have made an increase and it is coming out but to state that government had not disclosed this is also not accurate.”
The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) on Sunday announced a 20% upward adjustment to fuel prices which have resulted in the increment in transportation fares.
Last week, various institutions such as the NPA, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and some Ministers of state including the Finance Minister, Seth Tekper called for the removal of the fuel subsidy to reduce government expenditure.
Some civil society groups such as the Trade Union’s Congress (TUC) and the Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) have described the increment as unfair to the ordinary Ghanaian.
They also lamented that government did not give any prior notice to the general public of the intended increment in fuel prices.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday, Mr. Tekper said: “I don’t think that government had hidden the fact that the subsidy was taking a serious toll on government. If you go back on the 2012 supplementary budget that was read, we identified four sources of fiscal slippage and risk to the budget…and the fourth was fuel subsidy”
He added that “this is an issue that government itself had put out as a major risk to the budget…. This is not the first time the Bank of Ghana had pointed to fiscal slippages which affect their monetary policy and they have often pointed to the subsidy being one of them…so it has always been in the public domain.”
