GOV'T, TUC, AGI and GEA agree on the way forward in fuel hikes

The Vice President, John Mahama has announced that Government will through the Economic Management Team hold discussions with the Bank of Ghana and Commercial Banks on rationalizing Interest Rates to allow industry and other businesses to borrow and engage in productive business.

Mr. Mahama made the announcement when he read a ten point communique that was reached by Government, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) and the Ghana Employers Association (GEA) at a crunch meeting yesterday at the Castle, Osu.

The communique encouraged the tripartite institutions negotiating the new National Minimum wage to expedite action to mitigate the burden that the recent fuel hikes has brought to the masses.

Reading the communique to the media the Vice President stated that whiles the communique urged the tripartite institutions to deal with the new minimum wage issue it tasked the Ministry of Energy to make available to the private sector and other stakeholders the quarterly bulletin on the movement of petroleum prices on the world market to enable industry to forecast and plan for the future. In addition, the communique tasked the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to collaborate with the Energy Ministry to consider the concerns of Industry on the cost build-up of Residual Fuel Oil.

The communique, according to the Vice President further directed the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to publish in detail, the Tema Oil Refinery debts as at December 2010 to ensure openness and transparency and also called on the Ministry of Transport to continue to engage the Road Haulage Association and other transport unions to facilitate the fixing of fares in order to control escalating food prices when petroleum prices change.

Whiles the communique again tasked the various stakeholders to quicken the implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy the TUC urged Government to reconsider the current income tax threshold in order to bring more relief to workers, and rather called on Government to widen the tax net in order to improve government revenue.

In fine, the communique vehemently urged businesses and especially traders not to take undue advantage of the recent fuel priceincrement to arbitrarily increase the price of their products.







Story: George K. Azirigo
18/1/11