‘Stop Driving 4X4 If You Can’t Afford Fuel’…Arrogant Osafo Maafo Jabs Distraught Ghanaians

Senior advisor to President Akufo-Addo, Yaw Osafo Maafo, has told Ghanaian car owners who feel it has become too expensive to buy fuels for their cars to park the cars and walk.

In an interview on pro-government radio, Asaase, he dismissed calls for fuel subsidies saying there is no room for the economy to accommodate and so anybody finding it difficult to buy the fuel would do well to park the vehicle.

“There is no way the economy can provide subsidy to fuel,” the former Finance Minister told Accra-based Asaase Radio. “It’s a commodity we don’t produce, others produce and we buy. And therefore, we should at best buy it at the cost price,” he fallaciously claimed, even though Ghana produces more crude oil than local demand.

Also, Ghana has an oil refinery at Tema-the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) which has been run down by acute corruption of government appointees.

According to critics, if the government showed any will to alleviate the petroleum problem in Ghana, it would have invested in revamping TOR.

“The economy cannot and I repeat, cannot stomach [fuel] subsidy. People should pay for it. You see, there are so many vehicles on the road and some of them need not be there. If you can’t afford to drive a 4-wheel drive, then you must not use it. We must now begin to look at situations of economic use of energy,” Osafo-Maafo continued his tone-deaf rant.

Meanwhile, his tongue-in-cheek advice to Ghanaians resonates with an earlier promise by President Akufo-Addo that he will not remove taxes on petroleum products as Ghanaians have demanded because if he does, the economy will lose billions.

Ironically, it is the same Osafo Maafo whose shady payment of US$1million to UK company, Kroll and Associates for no work done, led to the forced early retirement of former Auditor General Daniel Domelevo.

Mr. Domelevo who was a hit with Ghanaians on account of his fight against corruption was sent on an early retirement by President Akufo-Addo so that Osafo Maafo could get away with the shady US$1million payment.

Again, Osafo Maafo has packed his children into juicy positions in government with fat salaries and benefits, but he wants other Ghanaians who have been hit by the economic hardship in the country to park their vehicles and walk.