The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers Ghana (COPEC Ghana) has called on government to take steps to revive the Tema Oil Refinery and halt the importation of fuel from European countries.

Executive Secretary of the Chamber, Mr. Duncan Amoah, speaking on JoyNews' AM Show on Thursday, said it is unacceptable that the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has been idle and government continues to buy fuel from a foreign refinery.

He noted that until Ghana enhances its competitive advantage when it comes to the production of oil and refinery, dollarization will persist.

"You cannot do away with dollarization if you do not localize your competitive advantage. You cannot continue to ground your refinery and go to the open market and get dollar just to buy from a foreign refinery. You are giving security of jobs to that refinery and so are you also helping that economy outside. You have a refinery, if the refinery business was bad, Dangote would not be pumping USD12billion into it.

There is a lot of advantage that provides you the fuel security you need that also saves your economy. Because you'd not go through that cycle of fuel importation - getting on the open market, leading to exchange of the cedi to dollar to pay the suppliers outside. You could be curbing that problem."

According to him, "we need to see how to internalize our competitive advantage so that we don't go out there to pay money to a refinery in Europe when your refinery has been left idle and abandoned, almost."

Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) Limited is Ghana's only refinery established in 1963.

Mr. Duncan Amoah was responding to concerns regarding the hike in fuel prices and how citizens can be cushioned by the government.

He noted that the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) could have saved the country of its current woes.

According to him, if TOR had been provided with some boilers to increase its production and refinery, BOST could have shelved some of the excesses.

However, he noted that is not the case. Mr. Duncan Amoah said BOST is currently not operating on its cardinal principle, since it is "trading and probably providing storage space to Bulk Distributing Companies (BDCs)."

Meanwhile, the Institute for Energy Security has appealed to government to fast-track its intervention to curb the rising fuel prices at the pumps in order to cushion consumers against the prevailing hardships.