NPA, Energy Ministry urged to ensure immediate reopening of LPG outlets across country

The Chamber for Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) is urging the National Petroleum Authority to ensure a speedy resolution of the deadlock between the operators of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and authorities to help reopen LPG outlets across the country.

COPEC is also calling on the Energy Ministry to ensure all grievances of the various operators within the LPG space are attended to immediately without fail, as the looming pressures on the Ghanaian LPG user could only exacerbate with further delays in addressing these challenges.

This is coming after LPG operators shut down their outlets to support striking tanker drivers.

In a statement signed by its Executive Secretary, Duncan Amoah, it said the sit-down strike threatened by the Gas Tankers Drivers Association which is currently being enforced seems to have energised the LPG Marketers Association and the Ghana LPG Operators Association to also follow suit in laying down their tools as of this morning [August 1, 2022], thereby leaving all LPG outlets across non-operational.

The ban we understand has led to about 11% reduction in volumes for the operators over the past one year instead of a projected 15% increase year on year.”

“We are currently inundated with calls from obviously stranded consumers who depend on these outlets seeking answers which we don’t have”, the statement pointed out.

It will be recalled that the Ghana National Tanker Drivers Association had hinted at a total sit-down strike last week Friday, July 29, 2022, following several attempts by the group and their members to get their issues resolved by both the Ministry of Energy and the National Petroleum Authority.

Pertinent amongst the unresolved challenges are issues of their general welfare and a rather unpopular needless ban on all new LPG sites which has affected their operations and finances over the past five years.

But COPEC said efforts by actors within the LPG sector, the LPG Marketers Association, the Ghana LPG Operators Association and the Ghana National Tanker Drivers Union to get these biting issues resolved have all proven futile as authorities do not seem to understand the pressures these operators are going through from the ban which squeezes operators who also are hardly able to meet financial commitments to the drivers.