Oliver Barker-Vormawor slams NDC government over GHghs1 fuel tax increase
Private legal practitioner and human rights advocate Oliver Barker-Vormawor, has sharply criticized the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government following the passage of the Energy Sector Levies (Amendment) Bill, 2025.
The bill, recently approved by Ghana’s Parliament, introduces a GH¢1 increase per litre of petroleum products, with the government estimating it will generate GH¢5.7 billion to help clear mounting energy sector debts.
However, Barker-Vormawor, known for his vocal activism and role in protest movements, condemned the move, particularly targeting government officials defending the levy. He pointed out that many of these officials benefit from state-funded fuel coupons and therefore do not personally bear the cost of fuel like ordinary Ghanaians.
He challenged the notion that the tax is minimal, saying the impact on everyday citizens—already burdened by high living costs—is being downplayed by those insulated from its effects.
BELOW IS HIS FULL WRITE-UP:
1. The next fuel coupons receiver to tell you that it’s just 1 cedi per litre deserves a slap. Don’t let the privileged insult your intelligence. Abufusem. Those are the ones, even making my blood boil.
2. They will keep their largesse, keep stealing and mismanaging VRA, ECG, GOIL, TOR. Then when it blows up, tax us to pay for it.
3. Absolute lack of accountability of the political class. In all this not a single person has been jailed in this ECG mess.
4. Keep stealing and using our livelihoods as your bailout programme.
5. This isn’t just about the quantum of the tax. Excessive as it is. It’s also about how our wounds are fresh and our memory still haunted
6. It’s about how you guys brought ESLA, promised us that it will take care of all energy legacy debt. We overpaid for that debt. You even went ahead collatorized it and it has become a permanent tax.
7. There was also the TOR debt recovery Levy. We paid over 1 billion more than the debt. And despite pleas to end it, it went on and on. Today TOR owes 570 million dollars.
8. Don’t get me started on E-Levy. We have barely recovered from its trauma. But before E-Levy came the Communications service tax.
9. Today you are telling us that it is the Dumsor tax that will save Ghana. Ghana we dey. Poor people will soon fill my comment section with insults, just like happened last time around.
10. It’s just amazing to me how, as poor as you tell me we are, the corruption economy keeps booming. Rot in the petroleum downstream sector is off the chains. Mustapha Hameed as NPA boss alone stands accused of over 250 million dollars theft.
11. Industry players tell me that the rot there a lone loses Ghana at least 3 million everyday. No one is ever held accountable. The power players there are fat cats, storing millions in Cayman Bank accounts.
12. Leadership without accountability comes to us at just 1 cedi per litre. Just remember this: guilty desires have guilty ends! 13. It is a bold joke to bring a new tax on June 4th! Shalom!
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