Government has no intention to takeover petroleum market – Deputy Energy Minister

Deputy Energy Minister, Andrew Egyapa Mercer, says government has no intention to takeover the petroleum market through its Gold for Oil programme.

According to him, concerns that the government through the Gold for Oil programme will increase its market share thus driving out private competitors are unfounded.

He stated that such a move is in contrast to the capitalist orientation of the ruling New Patriotic Party, and thus will never happen.

“I don’t think so at all…there’s a 100% market. Government already plays through some state owned entities, play in the region of 40 -50% and that hasn’t changed. It’s not like they’re doing 100%. The BDCs play in the 50 -60% space, and that is still there. And it was important for us to do the test run so that some of the issues that come up could be addressed,” he said.

Speaking on Joy News, he further explained that Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) and other state actors have limited capacity thus would be unable to handle the full demands of the nation if that was even the intention.

“There’s a limited capacity that BOST has anyway, there is a limited capacity that Go Energy has anyway, so it cannot be the case all of a sudden that they’re increasing their capacity overnight. And really, like I said, we are a party that believes in the private sector.

“We’re a government that consistently maintains that the private sector is the engine of growth. But you ought to go back to the history, in the past, all our petroleum products were imported by GNPC to complement what TOR was doing, so that entire space was government dominated.

“Government of Ghana under the presidency of His Excellency President Kufuor took out the GNPC factor and allowed private sector people to complement what TOR was doing. That hasn’t changed over the years and that’s exactly what is happening today,” he assured.