Senyo Hosi, the CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors, claims his company has enough gasoline to last a month.
The National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Energy Ministry, Bank of Ghana (BoG), and BDCs are all working together to prevent a gasoline crisis in Ghana, Mr. Hosi stated in an interview with Citi FM on Wednesday, June 22.
“We are collectively as an industry, Central Bank and the Energy Ministry and the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) working to address and mitigate that future risk.
“The Central Bank since March has been taking a very proactive intervention for our market but that also is limited. It started with about 50 percent of our requirement and now I think they have scaled down to about 20 and 25 percent of our requirement.
‘We are working together with the Central Bank to come up with what we call Oil FX Market, so we can actually create a lot more predictability and certainty for the international suppliers,” he explained.
“There is the risk of a crisis but we don’t have a crisis. That crisis will always exist provided these factors are examined.
“We have stocks to last you a month and a few more to come but that does not mean that there is enough comfort or certainty from the international market when they are seeing challenges with us making good our dollar payment,” Mr. Hosi added.
Mr Senyo Hosi was replying to a Bloomberg report that Ghana may suffer a gasoline crisis because BDCs may not have enough funds.
Ghana fears a gasoline crisis as the central bank limits money after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Bloomberg.
West Africa’s monthly gasoline import cost rose from $250 million in January to $450 million in May.
The BoG reportedly offers $100 million a month in foreign currency auctions, and licensed bulk distributors can no longer fill the shortage on the illicit market.