Since the NDC was ushered into office on January 7th 2009, the country has, on two occasions, been saddled with shortage of petroleum products. The first fuel shortage happened on the eve of US President Barack Hussein Obama’s visit to the country—which was in the month of July. That problem was partially solved by the government as the long queues of yellow gallons that had besieged petroleum filling stations suddenly disappeared.
Just after four months of that first fuel shortage, the country has, once again, been hit by another fuel crisis, and the yellow gallons have found its way back to many filling stations. As it stands now, it has spread all over the country thus compelling many commercial vehicles who make ends meet from their daily sales to hope that the fuel situation will immediately be resolved to enable them get back on the roads. That is most unfortunate!
It is interesting how political parties during times of elections play with fuel. Petrol has been used by political parties to canvass for votes.
And that picture was painted during the 2008 general elections. We will not mince words in asserting that President Mills’ campaign promise to reduce petrol drastically did not contribute to his winning of the 2008 presidential elections.
But instead of that drastic reduction as advocated by the Mills government during the 2008 electioneering campaign, Ghanaians are seeing increases in the prices of petroleum products and acute shortages. The situation has brought untold economic hardships to ordinary Ghanaians as a slight increase in the price of petroleum products leads to increases in the general prices of goods and services in the country.
Although the Deputy Minister of Energy, Dr Kobina Donkor, has come out to announce that the government was on the verge of importing 34,000 metric tonnes of petroleum products, we still think that the NDC government has not been on top of the fuel crisis. The practice where the government tends to shift blame to the immediate past government is not helping matters at all.
We believe that Ghanaians voted for the NDC because they knew the party could improve their lot. But from the very few things which are happening, we are tempted to believe that President Mills and his government are not up to the task of addressing the myriad of economic problems facing the country. It seems that a lasting solution has not been found to our fuel problem. And that explains why the issue keeps on resurfacing.
Mr President we still believe that you owe Ghanaians a campaign promise of drastic fuel reduction to fulfill and we hope that you have not forgotten that promise. We also hope that even though times are hard for every country, you will not renege on that particular promise.
