Ghana lost an estimated GHC43 million in 2014 as a result of fraudulent practices in the petroleum sector, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO)?of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Mr Alhassan Tampuli, has disclosed.
According to him, the lost revenues, which were about 12 per cent of annual freight paid to the NPA, was largely due to the lack of a system to track the movement of heavy duty vehicles which transported petroleum products across the country.
At the launch of the Bulk Road Vehicle (BRV) Tracking Scheme and Handbook on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Installations in Accra yesterday, Mr Tampuli said the situation was a threat to the sustainability of the Unified Petroleum Price Fund (UPPF), a fund set up to create a level playing field for petroleum transporters and ensure uniform pricing of petroleum products across the country.
“Due to the absence of an effective tracking system, petroleum service providers exploited the lack of capacity of the UPPF Secretariat to independently confirm the delivery of petroleum products to the retail outlets and subjected the fund to abuse through the presentation of false claims for cost incurred for the transportation of petroleum products,” Mr Tampuli stated.
Service providers presented freight claims for the delivery of petroleum products to locations in the northern part of the country, while in actual fact the products were delivered to Accra and its environs, he said.
Mr Tampuli noted that the success and sustainability of the fund was tied to an efficient and cost-effective transportation system for the distribution of petroleum products throughout the country.
Tracking scheme
The BRV Tracking System consists of a Global Position System (GPS), a set of volume sensors and a web-based monitoring application software.
The technology has proven to be reliable and among the best in the monitoring of road transportation of petroleum products.
The NPA chief executive said the scheme would ensure that all sectors of the economy benefitted from an efficiently managed downstream oil sector that would deliver the petroleum products in the right quantity and at the quality required at a relatively low cost.
Mr Tampuli said since the introduction of the BRV Tracking scheme, revenue loss had reduced to 2.3 per cent of total freight paid as of December last year, saving more than GHC34 million.
Government’s commitment
The Minister for Energy, Mr Boakye Agyarko, in a speech read on his behalf by the Chief Director, Professor Thomas Akabzaa, said the energy sector contributed immensely to the growth of the economy.
He, therefore, reiterated the government’s commitment to ensure regular supply of petroleum products to all parts of the country through a cost-effective and efficient distribution system.
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