Ghana’s petroleum downstream regulator, the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), has served notice to ban transporters whose fuel tanker will be caught engaging in fuel diversion.

According to Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, who assumed the role of CEO of NPA some seven months ago, the Authority had been lenient in the past but said that this time around, there would be no room for such illegal activities to fester.

The NPA has installed trackers and seals on tankers that transport fuel from the various depots. However, some drivers manage to break the seal and divert fuel without reaching their intended destination.

Speaking during his visit to the BOST depot in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region to end a five-day tour of the Northern Regions of Ghana, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said transporters whose tankers would be caught engaging in fuel diversion would be banned indefinitely.

“The loading of the products are done with the aid of technology but when tanker owners leave the BOST depot, instead of them going straight to wherever they are supposed to offload the product, they will go to certain unauthorised yards where they tamper with the seal of the Bulk Road Vehicles and siphon fuel. So now, we have to do real-time monitoring and by that action, immediately we see that a tanker truck is diverting, we will call the nearest police.”

Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid has said his primary objective is to ensure that rules and regulations are adhered to by various players in the petroleum downstream industry.

Touching on the recent explosion at Kaase, which involved a fuel tanker, suggested to be engaging in fuel siphoning, he said the state security is investigating the case, saying the authority would soon let Ghanaians know the outcome of the investigation.

Source: https://energynewsafrica.com