The group representing Ghana’s oil marketing companies says state intervention in fuel pricing, including the current diesel subsidy, is squeezing private operators.
The Chamber of Oil Marketing Companies (COMAC), the umbrella body for firms that sell fuel at pumps across Ghana, has again asked government to withdraw fully from setting fuel prices.
Its Chief Executive Officer, Dr Riverson Oppong, argues that the downstream petroleum sector cannot honestly be called deregulated while the state still shapes parts of the pricing structure.
What COMAC is asking for
Dr Oppong, speaking in comments reported by The Ghana Report, said the chamber has long campaigned for a complete price deregulation policy. His core complaint is that private companies borrow money to finance their operations but do not have the final say on what they charge.
"Who is going to determine what I charge for my good, a ceiling, a cap and all those things because we are a free market economy," he asked.
He accepted that parts of the system have already been opened up. Margins on some components of the SREF element of the price build-up are, in his words, "kind of deregulated". But he said government interventions remain, and that is precisely why the state is in a position to hand out subsidies at all.
The diesel subsidy backdrop
The renewed call comes while government is subsidising diesel as global crude prices climb, a step that shields consumers from absorbing the full cost of higher international petroleum prices.
That creates the tension at the heart of the dispute. For drivers, commercial transport operators and households facing transport fares, a subsidy softens the blow. For the companies importing and selling the fuel, COMAC says the same intervention distorts a market that is supposed to be commercially driven.
Dr Oppong described state interference as the single biggest difficulty he has faced since taking up his role at the chamber.
Too many players, he says
The COMAC boss also raised a second concern: the number of companies still applying to enter the sector. He put the current number of operators at 245 and questioned what any new entrant could offer that those firms cannot already deliver.
Anyone applying for a fresh oil marketing company licence today, he suggested, either misunderstands the business or has another motive. That is a pointed claim, and the source report does not include a response from the regulator or from prospective entrants.
Why it matters
Fuel pricing touches almost every cost in Ghana, from food transport to electricity generation inputs. For Ghanaians abroad sending money home, pump prices feed directly into the cost of living their families face.
Full deregulation would mean pump prices move purely with world oil prices and the cedi exchange rate, with no cushion when markets spike. Government has not publicly responded to COMAC's latest call.
