The Gold for Oil policy by Government has come under query by Veteran Journalist Kwesi Pratt Jnr.

Mr. Pratt’s comment was in reaction to Metro TV’s Dr. Randy Abbey’s statement on the government utilizing the Gold for Oil policy to secure a 20% petroleum products into the country on Good Morning Ghana on Wednesday, April 12, 2023..

According to Mr. Pratt, the government through the Bank of Ghana is unable to aid the smooth running of the private petroleum companies.

“Petroleum is imported by private companies, largely, we do know that Bank of Ghana is not in a position even to make dollars available to them to carry on with their imports.”

He implied also that the essence of the Gold for Oil programme is out of place since the country still has to trade petroleum products with dollars.

However, a government spokesperson, Eric Amoako Twum, who was also a pundit on the socio-political show shares a contrary opinion.

He explains that the government is being bedeviled with challenges.

“I believe strongly that as we go forward, of course, if the government is doing certain things that you have a challenge with, you can express those disquiet, you can express divergent views and all of those things. But we can never take that position that consistently, it’s almost as if that government cannot do anything right,” he argued.

The Gold for Oil policy was pivoted to buy petroleum products with gold rather than the US dollars.

The Vice President, Dr. Mahammudu Bawumia explained that the policy was to extricate the demand for US Dollars from oil importers while seeing an end to Ghana’s depleting foreign reserves.

The first consignment of the deal arrived in Ghana on 15th January 2023 with about 40,000 metric tonnes of diesel worth US $ 40 million.

By Leonora Enyonam Annoh | Metrotvonline.com | Ghana