The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) will revise petroleum prices• downwards to take effect as soon as the President accents the two bills passed by Parliament yesterday. Sources at the NPA told the Daily Graphic soon after Parliament passed the Customs and Excise (Duties and other Taxes) and the Customs and Excise (Petroleum Taxes and Petroleum Related Levies) Amendment bills that a litre of gas oil would sell at 120Gp, down from 125.54Gp immediately the amendment bill takes effect. Kerosene will sell at 113.5Gp down, from 118.95Gp, and marine gas oil 106.32Gp, down from 111.32Gp. The source said the government had consistently subsidised LPG and that explained why it was not affected by the changes. Meanwhile, some economic analysts and traders have welcomed the government's tax interventions in the face of escalating food and fuel prices but called for long-term measures to effectively deal with the situation. Among other things, they called for a reduction in government expenditure, more attention on diversification and conservation of energy, a radical agricultural policy to break away from the country's dependence on foreign imports and the need for parliament to make a special case for Ghanaian industries whose operations might be negatively affected by the waiver of taxes on imported rice, wheat and cooking oil. The analysts, Rev Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh of Databank, Dr Yao Graham of the Third World Network (TWN), Mr Sal Doe Amegavi of the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) and Mr John Awuni of the Finatrade Group, were commenting on the President's address on the current economic difficulties in separate interviews. In a broadcast last Thursday evening, President J. A. Kufuor announced a five-prong initiative aimed at mitigating the hardships resulting from escalating food and fuel prices. As part of the initiative, the government announced a reduction in import duties and levies on some food items, such as rice, wheat, yellow maize and vegetable oil, as well as some petroleum products. Rev Tetteh, who is an Associate Director of Databank, described the government's intervention as "a step in the right direction" and a very targetted approach to contain inflationary pressure, considering the escalating food and fuel prices. He said the removal of duties and levies on the food items would bring about price relief to consumers, dismissing suggestions that the nation should have rather invested the resources for food imports in the agricultural sector to boost production. Dr Graham, who is the Co-ordinator of the TWN, said the interventions demonstrated the government's recognition of the severity of the situation but he did not think they would in any way address the problem of price increases, particularly in a country where the prices of goods were never reduced. Dr Graham's pessimism was founded on the opinion that the government had no mechanism for controlling prices. He said over the past 25 years successive governments had not paid enough attention to food production, pointing out that "this is the time to support agriculture in the country". For his part, Mr Amegavi, who is the Executive Secretary of the GNCCI, asked Parliament to make a special case for Ghanaian industries whose operations might be negatively affected by the waiver of taxes on imported rice, wheat and cooking oil. He said although the announcement was welcome news to Ghanaians, no matter how marginal it could affect the people, it was still necessary to allow local industries some waivers to be able to compete with the imported products on which the taxes had been taken. He welcomed the reduction off in taxes on gasoline, saying industry stood to gain, since it used diesel to fire most of its plants. Mr Awuni, who is the Public Affairs Director of the Finatrade Group, said the company welcomed the news and described it as a "strategic decision" on the part of the government to ensure that food prices were within the scope of the people. Last week the company made a call on the government to reduce tariffs on imported rice and wheat to make the items affordable to the people. As a major rice merchant in the country, the company expressed its resolve to ensure that the reduction in tariffs reflected accordingly on the price of the imported products. In Kumasi, there was mixed reactions to the tax rebates announced by President Kufuor on the importation of major food items, and some petroleum products. While some described the government's initiative as human-centred, others believed they fell short of addressing the problems confronting the ordinary people of the country. Some food distributors welcomed government's decision to remove import duties on some food items such as rice, wheat, yellow corn and vegetable oil. They emphasised that the move was a good one to help check rising price levels but expressed reservation over how it would quickly trickle down to the markets to enable consumers to benefit. This was because they claimed many of them had stockpiles in their warehouses and that if prices were to come down immediately, it would reduce their working capital and profits and thereby threatens the government initiative. Others also thought that since Ghana was practicing a free market system, it would be difficult to control prices even in. the face of the reduction in import taxes. Source: Daily Graphic