Kwaku Agyeman Duah, chief executive officer of the Association of Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) says the group was not expecting the government to increase tax on petroleum products.
Speaking on Energy 101 with Emmanuel Aboagye-Wiafe, he said, “We were not expecting that because we have this impact of the COVID rather we thought maybe there would be reliefs; general reliefs, tax reliefs for businesses and also for individuals.”
“But this [increase of tax on fuel products] came as something we were not expecting,” he added.
In the 2021 Budget Statement, the government proposed the introduction of two levies, resulting in a 5.7% increment on petroleum prices at the pump.
Presenting the 2021 Budget in Parliament on Friday (12 March), Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said: “I should note that on the basis of existing world crude oil prices, the implementation of the two proposed levies for sanitation and pollution as well as to pay for excess capacity charges would result in a 5.7% increase in petroleum prices at the pump.”
He said that the “government is proposing a Sanitation and Pollution Levy (SPL) of 10 pesewas on the price per litre of petrol/diesel under the Energy Sector Levies Act (ESLA)”.
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