Scrap All Taxes On LPG – Sellers Urge Government

The Vice Chairman for the LPG Marketing Companies Association of Ghana, Gabriel Kumi, has reiterated calls to the Government to subsidise the cost of the Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG). He said LPG has an alternative in charcoal and wood fuel and once it becomes expensive, people will switch to the alternative. Speaking on the

Wednesday, he stated that subsidising the cost of LPG will significantly improve the consumption of the product in the country. The call comes after checks revealed that the hike in the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) has also led to an increase in demand for charcoal as an alternative for cooking. Mr. Kumi intimated that the only

way to reverse this trend is for government to absorb part of the cost of the product. The only thing is to make LPG affordable. Currently, LPG is also more like a luxury product. The masses of our people that we need to rope into the consumption of LGP are not able to afford the product and the only way is to make LPG affordable to

the people. It’s for this reason that some countries like Cote d’Ivoire are subsidizing the product. We believe the first step is to take off all those taxes from the LPG and bring the price down. LPG is highly price-sensitive. Any pesewa increase or decrease in the price of LPG goes a long way to affect its consumption. So if you take 18%

off the price of LPG I can assure you you’re going to attract a lot more people, he stated. Meanwhile, the Forestry Commission is taking measures to safeguard the country’s forest reserves. The Commission said the surge in the demand for charcoal is a clear depletion of the vegetation cover. It thus has initiated the distribution

of seedlings for plants that can be used for commercial charcoal production. Ashanti Regional Manager of the Commission, Augustine Kofi Gyedu also said, what the Commission is doing is to levy those trucks that carry charcoal, we have checkpoints in various locations, we charge 80 pesewas per mini bag of charcoal.