Barely 24 hours after the presidential announcement of an intervention policy to ease the high cost of living in the country, members of the opposition say they are skeptical about how soon the effect will trickle down to the local market. The politicians are also questioning how much the tax component on diesel and marine oil must be slashed and whether traders will reduce their prices to reflect the changes. In a panel discussion on Joy FM’s Front Page programme, National Democratic Congress (NDC) General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, said it would be difficult for the policy to have any effect on the ground saying government has no policy to control prices on the market. “We are talking of a situation where there are stocks in the system on which these taxes have been paid already. There is no price control mechanism to be able to monitor compliance,” he stated. Mr Asiedu Nketia said the government intervention policy would rather pass for “substituting prudent measures with appeals.” “We’ve been told in the country that it is profits that drive the economy. It is going to be very difficult to say the president has made these appeals so bring down those prices,” he stated. Minister of State at the Finance Ministry, Dr Anthony Akoto-Osei said positive discussions have been ongoing with importers and expressed hope that the traders would comply. In a telephone interview with Joy News, President of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Tony Oteng Gyasi, said although the relief package is timely, the waiver on imported vegetable oil would rather leave local industries [Unilever, BOPP etc] the sludge of unfair competition. He said government through the appropriate parliament committee may have to develop a mechanism to deal with the issue to avoid gradually killing the local industry. However the Convention People’s Party’s spokesperson on trade, Dr Kwaku Osafo cautioned that there is the need for government to strategise for the long time. Story by Fiifi Koomson