The national price increase in petroleum prices, according to the opposition New Patriotic Party, exposes the hypocrisy of the administration of President John Dramani Mahama and his National Democratic Congress administration.

At a press conference in Accra yesterday, Mr. Kobina Tahir Hammond, Parliamentary Spokesman on Energy, told Ghanaians that the government's policy on hedging to 'drastically' reduce the prices of petroleum products sold to Ghanaians in the run-up to the 2012 elections, had been shelved without any explanation to the people whose interests were supposed to have been served by those policies.

Mr. Hammond, who is the NPP Member of Parliament for Adansi Asokwa, said: "All these increases have been the result of the depreciation of the cedi," which is itself the "result of the incompetence of the NDC in handling the economy."

Claimed the NPP Spokesperson: "In all this, nothing has been said about the so-called hedging contracts which were meant to absorb any upward movements in international crude oil prices, and which has cost the country over US$200 million. It must be noted that in the last budget, the government also set aside about GH¢800 million as subsidy for petroleum products.

"With the subsidy removed and consumers paying full ex-pump price, the government must clearly indicate how it would re-allocate this budget line item. Ghanaians can only hope that this money would not surreptitiously find its way into the Presidency budget," Mr. Hammond prayed.

The NPP said that in the run-up to the 2008 elections, officials of the NDC in opposition claimed that they "would ensure the supply of power on a reliable and sustainable basis if they were elected to power. They boasted that they would ensure the delivery of energy services to all consumers in a secure, efficient, reliable and environmentally-friendly manner. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Ghanaians have all seen how efficient and reliable power has been supplied under the NDC administration."

According to Mr. Hammond, the problem with power supply under the NDC was that the Mills/Mahama administration was heavily indebted to power generators Volta River Authority and distributors, the Electricity Company of Ghana.

The party in opposition claimed that while the NPP in government supported both the VRA and ECG with crude oil and other vital inputs, the NDC had neglected its vital role in building the capacities of these power utilities. Rather, the government owed the Bulk Oil Supply and Transport US$700 million, and was heavily indebted to ECG in unpaid bills.

"Today, we are told that the investment requirements of the ECG is about US$600 million, and the government of the NDC, does not want to know," Mr. Hammond lamented.

The Ranking Member on Energy told newsmen that besides the problem of inadequate generation capacity, the poor distribution network was a further cause of the energy crisis. "Between 2001 and 2008, the NPP government provided significant funding to ECG for critical investment in the distribution network. Today, we are told that the investment requirement of the ECG is about US$600m... .ECG's network is in such a state of disrepair that about 25 percent of power distributed is lost from the distribution network in what is called 'technical loses'. That represents about US$110 of lost revenue to ECG."

In a comprehensive review of the energy sector, the NPP lamented that at the time the country had discovered oil, the administration of the NDC had rather suspended the Tema Oil Refinery expansion programme put in place by the previous NPP administration, and reverted to the policy of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation lifting crude oil, and thus completely crippling TOR.

"TOR's inability to operate," according to the NPP spokesperson, "has contributed to the regular queues we see for Liquified Petroleum Gas."

Mr. Hammond told Ghanaians that through the efforts of the previous Kufuor administration, oil was discovered in commercial quantity in the Jubilee Fields. "Several trillion square cubic feet of gas has been discovered in the Jubilee TEN and Sankofa Oil and Gas Fields. But, just like many aspects of the NDC administration, the production of gas to fuel our power generation plants has been beset by inertia and muddled thinking."

The Ranking Member on Energy said in a further display of opaqueness, the operations of the Ghana Gas Company, established to harness the huge gas find to propel the energy sector of the economy, "is shrouded in secrecy in spite of huge investment of US$750 million in Chinese loans."

On revenue from the oil find, the NPP claimed that as at now, the nation was estimated to have earned about US$1 billion, but there is very little evidence of how this huge resource have been applied, and pray that the discovery of oil becomes a blessing rather than a curse "that has blighted the economies and lives of many oil producing countries."