The Chief Executive Officer of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid has engaged stakeholders in the Eastern Region to familiarize themselves with the operation of the organization.
The visit was to among others know the people and “understand their sentiments to be able to craft and execute a vision that resonates with the people within the organization.”
This is the first of his visit to the eastern region as the Chief Executive officer of NPA.
During his interaction with the media, he disclosed the organization has embarked on stakeholder consultations including a visit to the LPG, OMCs, Marketing Associations, Tanker Drivers and Owners, Civil Society Organizations, and others.
According to him, the aforementioned industries are quite wide, and a huge industry to think about an industry that contributes 6% of GDP is to think about an industry that contributes billions of cedis to Ghana’s development effort.
He said, it is as a result of that, the leadership of the NPA has embarked on stakeholders’ consultations in the past four months and has promised to do more.
Dr. Abdul-Hamid added that, as part of knowing the various organizations, he disclosed they have already had management retreats as they go about executing their mandate.
He said, in the bid to prevent people from violating the rules of the NPA, they will engage the various security agencies to help get rid of that.
He affirmed they are determined to strengthen their stakeholder relations to help them to do the kinds of work they intend doing.
The visit also took the CEO to the eastern regional police Command at the regional police headquarters, Galloway where he discussed with the security capo issues of corporation between NPA and the Ghana Police Service in terms of providing security for industry players and help in the fight against fuel diversion, smuggling and other related irregularities that may occur in the course of doing business.
Reacting to prices of fuel in the country, he said, “We have done what is within our remit per law which is that we appealed to the President and being the sensitive President that he is, he agreed that the price stabilization and recovering levy be suspended for two months. The intended purpose of that suspension was so we could stabilize prices”
“I’m sure you know what the world’s situation is as far as petroleum prices are concerned, everything is going up on the international market and so to that extent, we thought that this price stabilization and recovery levy was put there specifically for this purpose.
“So, we have done our bit and we were hopeful that November window we do not see astronomical jumps at the pump at least why haven’t seen that which will mean to me that the price stabilization and recovery removal is working because prices haven’t jumped”
However, Dr Hamid insisted the strategy of the NPA is working having been able to stabilize the prices of fuel.
After the media interactions, he also toured some of the fuel stations in Koforidua to check the works being done on the field.