The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), is calling on Parliament’s Mines and Energy and Finance Committees to review the government’s proposal of a new petroleum tax.

Following the passage of the 2021 budget, the various committees in Parliament are set to debate aspects of its appropriations to the sectors.

Meanwhile, speaking to the Citi Business News, Executive Secretary of COPEC, Duncan Amoah said, as Ghanaians continue to grapple with the impact of COVID-19, the parliamentary committees must ensure they protect the interest of the citizenry.

“We will be hoping that our parliamentarians on both the mines and energy committee and the finance committee would be mindful of the negative consequences that these new taxes being proposed by the finance ministry would have, on the Ghanaian people, on industries and on the collective body Ghana.”

He added that “And so we are quite certain that by the time deliberations are done from these committee stages and whatever report should be ready there could be some modifications through the proposition by the finance ministry, in order that we do not further burden the Ghanaian petroleum user because if you added another 5.7 or 30 pesewas to fuel prices on the market already, you are going to go way too high for any bodies pocket and we do think that our members in the various committees would be mindful of the complaints from their own electorates and not just go and tow party lines and approve everything that has been proposed”.

COPEC was among the various groups that kicked against the government’s announcement of the tax describing it as a lazy approach towards revenue generation.

In the 2021 budget presentation, an increase of 30 pesewas on fuel prices to take care of excess power capacity charges and Sanitation and Pollution Levy were introduced.

Despite public disapproval with some aspects of the budget, especially the introduction of new taxes, the 2021 budget was last week approved by parliament, but its committees will begin sitting to approve appropriations to various sectors captured in it.