Vice President of the LPG Marketers Association, Gabriel Kumi, has described the government's omission of matters relating to Liquefied Petroleum Gas in its address as disappointing.

In an interview on JoyNews’ Upfront on Thursday, Mr. Kumi said his association is not discouraged by the exclusion, adding that “they would continue to push for the right things to be done.”

“LPG was not affected. If you look at what was being mentioned he specifically mentioned diesel, petrol and he is pushing for a 15 pesewas reduction in these two products. LPG was nowhere mentioned in the presentation,” he told Raymond Acquah.

His comments come after the Finance Minister announced that government has committed to reducing margins in the petroleum price build-up by a total of 15 pesewas per litre with effect from 1^st April.

According to Ken Ofori-Atta, the reduction is aimed at mitigating “the impact of the rising price of petroleum products at the pump, for the next three months.”

The reductions are also expected to reduce the prices of petrol by 1.6% and diesel by 1.4%. The details are as follows;

1. BOST margin reduced by 2 pesewas per litre
2. Unified Petroleum Pricing Fund (UPPF) margin reduced by 9 pesewas per litre
3. Fuel Marking Margin (FMM) reduced by 1 pesewa per litre
4. Primary Distribution Margin (PDM) reduced by 3 pesewas per litre

Commenting further on the exclusion, Mr Kumi stated that the current consumption of LPG in the country is on the decline, therefore “that should be a source of big worry to every Ghanaian.”

 “In 2019, we did an average of almost 30,000 metric tonnes a month that came down to 29,000 metric tonnes a month. It came further down to 28,000 metric tonnes in the average in 2021 and this year our projection is that LPG consumption is going to go further down to about 25,000 metric tonnes a month if the situation persists,” he indicated.

The Vice President of the LPG Marketers Association stated that since the Association began calling for the removal of taxes and the implementation of measures to reduce LPG prices in Ghana, no government official has been able to challenge their position.

This, according to him, indicates that “government itself sees the reasonable argument we are trying to put across.”

Despite this, he claims that the government lacks the courage to ensure that LPG prices are reduced.

“You have set the target to increase consumption of LPG, you have set a target to double the consumption in LPG in 10 years. LPG is a product with an elastic demand, how can you achieve an increment in consumption whiles at the same time price of the production keeps moving up? In the first step, just take off the taxes from the product,” he said.