By Cecil Mensah
The National Petroleum Authority (NPA), the petroleum downstream regulator, is seeking draconian laws to deal with the smuggling of petroleum products into the country.
In line with the NPA’s decision, Mr. Boakye Agyarko, Energy Minister has suggested that trucks found to have indulged in smuggling of fuel should be confiscated to the state and the owner banned forever from operating in the country.
‘’It is about time smugglers in the petroleum sector are dealt with like drug pushers who get their properties and third party properties confiscated to the state to serve as deterrent to others,” he suggested.
According to him, Ghana needs a draconian law to stop the bleeding in both the private sector and the public sector of the economy resulting from illegal exportation of fuel.
There is the need for the NPA to move fast by harmonizing the needed laws for Parliament to pass to deal with the alarming rate of illegal exportation of petroleum products in the country, he said.
The Minister made the call for the needed laws to deal with the situation at a breakfast meeting of stakeholders with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NPA in Accra last week.
The Minister spoke on the measures to be rolled out by the NPA to deal with the situation as part of the authority’s National Petroleum Safety Campaign to educate players in the industry in the wake of the recent gas explosions in the across the country.
He mentioned that the NPA with the support of the Ministry will introduce export guidance, issue product regime, amend the petroleum marketing scheme, and review all petroleum licenses, sanction oil marketing companies which fail the quality test as some of the measures to deal with the situation.
He said smuggling in the petroleum downstream has contributed to a decline in the business of Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) in the country.
He posited that it is only in Ghana that a truck load of petroleum products leaves the Tema port en-route to Bamako and surfaces the next day only to load for the same location.
So in other words the truck used a day to complete the journey to Bamako. This is what is happening in the system when it comes to the illegal exportation of petroleum products in the country, he said.
He said these products smuggled into the country are not taxed and the people involved in these illicit activities make a gain of 51 percent while their counterparts doing genuine business suffer.
Mr. Alhassan Tampuli, CEO of NPA, announced a decision to review all export licensing regime to check the illegal smuggling of petroleum products.
He said this will be followed by a screeching consultation with stakeholders to flush out the smugglers.
He called for the need for a paradigm shift to get results from the initiatives that have been rolled out with the support of the Ministry of Energy.
He added that the authority will continue to track the trucks to ensure sanity in the petroleum downstream.
