Ghana is on the path of completely stamping out illegal activities in the downstream petroleum industry, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NPA, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, has said.
A few years ago, the West African nation’s petroleum downstream was saddled with illegal activities including fuel adulteration, fuel smuggling, tax evasion and third-party trading among others.
A section of industry players, especially those who were compliant were worried over the sad development and called on the regulator to act to stem the bad practices.
Luckily, the situation has changed as a result of a commitment by the regulator to deal with the situation.
Speaking to a section of Ghanaian journalists recently to update them on the activities of NPA in 2022, the CEO of NPA, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid revealed that the effort of the Authority has helped to reduce illegal activities in the petroleum downstream sector.
He said since 2015, the NPA had worked tirelessly, thus, leading to a drastic reduction in fuel adulteration and fuel smuggling.
“We have been able to drastically reduce the incident of fuel smuggling, adulteration etc. Since 2015, adulteration figures have reduced from 32% to 1.6%.
“We are confident that we will be more vigilant and be able to stamp out the issue of fuel adulteration,” Dr Abdul-Hamid said.
The NPA’s CEO also updated the press on the Cylinder Recirculation Model (CRM) programme.
He said the programme was to commence fully in 2022 but due to some challenges, the Authority had rescheduled the full implementation to this year.
Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said GOIL had assured his outfit of their LPG Bottling plant, which is under construction and would commence operations in the first quarter of this year.
He said the CRM programme would commence fully once the LPG bottling plant starts operating.
Ghana, through the NPA, introduced the Cylinder Recirculation Model Programme to address rampant gas explosions following the Atomic Junction Gas explosion incident in October 2017.
Under the policy, all the current LPG retail outlets would be converted to LPG distribution centres where consumers could go with empty cylinders to exchange for ones that are already filled from the bottling plant.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com