Ghanaians will have to pray very hard to ensure uninterrupted supply of Liquefied Petroleum Gas if they want to enjoy a smooth celebration of this year�s Christmas.
Ghanaians have witnessed long periods of unprecedented shortage of the commodity under the Mills-Mahama led National Democratic Congress government, and there are fears that another shortage could hit the nation soon.
The New Statesman can reveal that at a meeting with some leaders of the Ghana Transport Petroleum Chemical Union recently, Alex Mould, Executive Secretary of the National Petroleum Authority, warned of a possible shortage of the commodity if government continued to delay the release of funds for the payment of gas subsidies.
At the said meeting attended by Mr EA Mensah, General Secretary of GTPCU, Mr Mould reportedly complained about the tendency of some government officials to engage in blame game instead of finding solutions to problems in the petroleum sector.
And with exactly thirteen days to the Christmas festivities, the nation appears set once again to be hit by shortage of gas.
The signs were clear in the Sunyani municipality over the weekend, as taxi drivers and domestic users remained in queues waiting to be served. Some gas filling stations in Kumasi and Accra also experienced some shortages last week. This development was affecting commuters and commercial activities in the Brong Ahafo regional capital over the weekend.
Visits to some gas filing stations revealed long queues of empty cylinders of both domestic and commercial users, with some coming there as early as 4am on Friday.
One taxi driver told our reporter: �some of us have been coming to the station to fill our cylinders for the past three days but still we are yet to be served due to the long queues of taxis that are all here for gas.�
Information, however, gathered from officials of the filling stations indicated that though they offloaded some gas tankers on Wednesday, the demand was too great that they were running out of the commodity as of Friday afternoon.
Those who seemed to be worst hit by this gas shortages were the domestic users. Pouring out their frustration, they told the paper that it would be much difficult to have a meaningful Christmas without gas. They therefore called on the government and the NPA to ensure that there is enough gas at all times, especially during this festive occasion.
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