The National Chairman of the Pre-mix Fuel Secretariat under the Ministry of Fisheries and Aqua-Culture Development in the Republic of Ghana, West Africa, says the secretariat is seeking the support of the National Security Operatives to clampdown on middlemen who buy the product and hoard and resell it later at exorbitant prices.
There were several reports of pre-mix fuel diversion leading to the NPA banning 14 companies from lifting the product.
However, Mr Edward Patrick Nii Lante Bannerman, who is the National Chairman of the Secretariat, said his outfit had succeeded in eliminating the diversion of the product due to some stringent measures they put in place which made it difficult for the OMCs that lift the product to divert it.
“What we have done so far is that, largely we have been able to eliminate the issues of diversions and issues of shortages of pre-mix for some time now. At least, in the last two years, we have not heard of shortages; we have not heard of diversions. We are making sure that the fuel gets to its intended destinations and the people who are to utilise this fuel get it. The people to use this fuel are the fishers and the transporters,” he said.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with energynewsafrica.com in Accra, he stressed that Ghanaians bear ample evidence that issues of pre-mix diversion and shortage in the country are things of the past.
He said records from the downstream petroleum regulator, National Petroleum Authority (NPA) point to this effect.
“As part of measures to control diversion of pre-mix, we wrote to the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to give us the opportunity to also monitor the pre-mix trucks in transit right from our offices, which they did. So from November 2017, we have been able to monitor all our pre-mix trucks that are in transit,” he explained.
Additionally, platforms have been created for stakeholders, Regional Ministers, Members of Parliament, MMDCEs and operation officers, among others in the monitoring of the product to evaluate how daily loaded vehicles in transit move and accounted for in the industry.
He said it would be very difficult to divert pre-mix now since “you have to connive with all the above stakeholders before it could done.”
According to him, “The challenge we have now is the hoarding and resale of the pre-mix fuel after it has been delivered at the beach. And that is where the challenge is. And that is where we are looking at getting the National Security Operatives to step in to help us.”
Mr Bannerman told energynewsafrica.com, that his outfit has started engagement with the Regional Ministers, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives who are at places where pre-mix is used to get to the final users.
He said they completed their engagement in the Volta Region last week and would soon go to the other areas.
He was of the view that MMDCEs should ensure that the product gets to the right users to avoid problems in the sector.
He disclosed that the National Pre-mix Committee intends to digitise the sale of the product in future through the use of cards by fishers to prevent hoarding and inflated prices in the industry.
He said that canoes in the lake areas in the country have not been registered, unlike those around the coastal areas.
He, however, promising to do so soon to get all fishers on the digital platform for smooth and effective management of the sector.
Source: www.energynewsafrica.com