The Chief Executive Officer of the National Petroleum Authority Alhassan Tampuli has blamed the rise in fuel prices in the country on the hurricanes that have afflicted America in recent times.

According to him, the hurricanes have greatly affected the global oil supply.

Some Ghanaians have raised concerns over the seeming steady increase in fuel prices over the months.

Commenting on the matter, Mr. Tampuli told Francis Abban on Morning Starr Wednesday that government has not tinkered the price build-up of oil since assuming power.

“The price build up is made of three essential component, first of all we have the international price at which we buy the product, and secondly we use the exchange rate. The second ingredient is the exchange rate, the third one is the taxes, levies and statutory margins.

“In terms of the taxes, levies and others nothing has changed. As a matter of fact, in this year’s budget, the taxes were rather reduced. Excise tax was completely taken out and then the special petroleum tax was reduced from 17.5% to 15% so government has done some amount of tinkering in the areas that it has control over.

“What you find that will account for the price increase is the FOB price which we don’t have control over. It is the international price that we all rely on to get the product into the country. Those are also affected by geopolitical realities, also affected by natural disasters and in this instance hurricane Harvey and Irma can be said to be the major reasons why we have this current price build up,” he explained.