Petroleum Minister Buhari wants contaminated fuel importers held responsible
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Importers of contaminated fuel causing supply havoc must be held accountable, President Muhammadu Buhari has directed, but that skirts over his own responsibility as Petroleum Minister, a job he has done in all his years in the Villa.
Adding to the fiasco is the report that several transporters have stopped conveying petrol across the country, and others may soon join the boycott, because the government refuses to increase freight rate. Then fuel scarcity will get worse.
Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) Chief Executive Officer Gbenga Komolafe disclosed on 2 February that 150,000 barrels of oil are lost to theft per day, which amounts to $4 billion per year at current prices.
Buhari, apart from being President, apportioned to himself direct supervision of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and the entire oil and gas industry.
That means he must take direct responsibility for the rife corruption in the oil industry he has superintended for seven years running.
Lawmaker thieves investigating other thieves
Even the National Assembly (NASS) claiming to investigate the importation of adulterated fuel and other financial corruption scandals is a den of treasury looters, according to other government agencies.
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) discovered that lawmakers have diverted and stolen at least N260 billion via bogus contracts, besides N4.14 billion the Auditor General says is missing in the NASS.
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) in January 2022 sued to court Senate President Ahmad Lawan and House Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila for failing to probe the N4.14 billion theft in the NASS.
The N4.14 billion is different from N4.4 billion federal Auditor General Adolphus Aghughu discovered “missing, misappropriated or stolen” in the NASS audited reports for 2015, 2017, and 2018.
That totals N8.54 billion officially discovered “missing, misappropriated or stolen” in the NASS in the four years between 2015 and 2018. The sum would be far higher if all stolen funds are discovered and added.
__________________________________________________________________
Related articles:
Under Buhari, even lawmakers are stealing billions, says ICPC
Buhari ignores yearly $4b oil theft, insists on taking loans
Abuja pays N22.7b bridging claims to head off fuel hiccups
__________________________________________________________________
Corruption in NNPC
The media is awash with stories of monumental corruption in the NNPC. But rather than clean up the mess, Buhari occupies himself with allocating oil blocs, the most juicy ones to his Northern cronies, just as Ibrahim Babangida did.
Famfa Oil Vice President Folorunsho Alakija – Africa’s richest woman – disclosed in an interview on Arise TV on 15 July 2021 that her firm obtained licence to explore oil in a bloc of 617,000 acres (now OPL 216) in May 1993.
The licence was obtained from the Ministry of Petroleum, she recounted, but “it was a case of discretionary allocation at the time. The President [Babangida], through the NNPC, was the one that would decide who got it.”
Babangida was Military President between 1993 and 1985, and for all the eight years he imposed himself on Nigeria as a dictator, he allocated oil bloc licences as he wished – mainly to fellow Northerners.
About 95 per cent of lucrative oil bloc licences in the South is owned by people from the North, where there is no oil exploration. The lopsided allocation was started by Nigeria’s first Petroleum Minister (1972-1975), Shettima Ali Monguno.
Monguno hailed from Borno State in the North East.
Perpetuation of Northern dominance of the NNPC and the entire oil and gas industry motivated Buhari to appoint himself Petroleum Minister when he became President in 2015.
Buhari has since encouraged his henchmen to foster and to spread more corruption in the oil sector, to the dismay of other Nigerians.
Tunji Abayomi, human rights activist and Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, has expressed concern on how the insensitive Northern elite destroys Nigeria’s peace and unity.
Abayomi told TheNiche on 28 July 2021 that, for example, all of the 25 senior executives of the NNPC are from the North even though the oil they preside over is from the South.
Importation of contaminated fuel
NNPC Group Managing Director Mele Kyari announced on Thursday that adulterated fuel was imported from Antwerp, Belgium by four companies with quality inspectors failing to detect the high level of methanol in the consignments.
He said investigation discovered excessive methanol in four fuel cargoes imported by MRS, Emadeb/Hyde/AY Maikifi/Brittania-U Consortium, Oando, and Duke Oil.
But MRS countered that the fuel with higher than normal concentrates of methanol was imported in the last week of January by Duke Oil, the trading arm of the NNPC.
Oando has also denied importing adulterated fuel.
“Following media reports listing Oando as one of four importers that supplied methanol-blended Premium Motor Spirits into the country, we hereby state that Oando did not import and supply PMS that was adulterated or substandard.
“The PMS supplied by Oando met Nigeria’s import specification. We are committed to working assiduously with the NNPC and industry, in order to identify the root cause(s) of the subsequent contamination of the PMS supplied,” Oando said in a statement.
“We want to assure the public that Oando, as a responsible corporate citizen, would not partake in the importation, distribution, or marketing of substandard petroleum products.”
Buhari avoids taking responsibility
Buhari insisted through his spokesman Garba Shehu on Thursday that those responsible for importing refined petroleum with excessive methanol, which has caused fuel scarcity, should be held accountable for their actions.
“The President has also given directives to the relevant government agencies to take every step in line with the laws of the country to ensure the respect and protection of consumers against market abuses and social injustices,” Shehu said in a statement.
“In reaction to the petroleum product shortages linked to the inadvertent supply of products of foreign origin into the Nigerian market, … Buhari said the protection of consumer interests is a priority of the present administration and is ready to take all necessary measures to protect consumers from hazardous products, loss or injuries from the consumption of substandard goods.
“The President also directed in line with the law, [that] service providers must make full disclosure of relevant information with respect to the consumption of their products and that dissatisfied consumers are entitled to a proper redress of their complaints.”
Dispute over freight rate
Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) National President Yusuf Othman told journalists in Abuja that the payment of freight for petrol is regulated by the Nigeria Downstream, Midstream Regulatory Authority (NDMRA).
“Worse still, these payments are received by transporters in arrears, usually three to five months after the products are delivered,” Othman said, per reporting by The PUNCH.
“In 2020, there was an approval by the defunct board of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency to increase the freight rate by 26 per cent for which the endorsement of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources was needed for implementation.
“However, the Minister of State could not endorse the approval due to the obvious implication of its implementation that would result into either an outright increase in the pump price of PMS or an increase in the subsidy on the product, neither of which the government was ready to do at the time.
“This situation generated a lot of tension in the downstream petroleum industry with a strong possibility of industrial action from both NARTO and PTD/NUPENG. To douse this tension, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC intervened.”
Transport business running at a loss
Othman said resolutions reached with government agencies have not been implemented and transport owners would not continue in business when running at a loss.
“If the government refuses to comply with our demands, our people are not compelled to run their businesses at a loss.
“The current PMS scarcity is partly caused by a lack of funds to run the trucks profitably.
“Many transporters have decided to park their trucks, and I am sure that many more will park theirs in due course if something drastic about increasing the freight rate is not promptly done.”
