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The Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) has distanced itself from the anomalies arising from the trans-border crossing with huge volume of petrol with trucks, saying that it does not know what happens at Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) depots.
According to the agency, it says it has its own figures about the volume of petrol the country consume a day in the country, the number of trucks that load every day and their destinations, adding that it have a track record of the trucks that load from various designated depots across country to filling stations through its Dispatched and Receiving destination process.
Goddy Nnadi, general manager, Communications, PEF, told BusinessDay that if there is any issue with any truck, PEF is immediately notified and such trucks are given sometime to be fixed before. “With Aquila 2 there is no way there could be product diversion without being detected”.
Project Aquila is an efficient system of managing products distribution and payment of Marketers’ claims. It confirms the loading and delivery of petroleum products at the depots. It was initiated to check leakages, enthrone transparency and due process while transforming the Board’s operations.
He said: “Our figures as regards the trucks that lift product is very clear and we submit our report to the government on weekly basis. We are sure of our figures because we keep good tracks of the trucks we are supposed to monitor”.
Nnadi said the products allegedly being diverted belong to the NNPC and not the one under the supervision of PEF is privy to what happens at those areas where NNPC operates.
However, Femi Adewale, executive secretary, Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria ( DAPPMAN ) said that it is possible to ferry petroleum product across the border without necessarily using trucks as those engaged in the smuggling business have devised various means of carrying out their nefarious activities.
Adewale said they could smuggle the product using out motor cycles (popularly called Okada), just the same way they smuggled in rice into the country.
According to him, “125 motor cycles would conveniently empty 33,000 litres truck of petrol”. He said any motor cycle that can carry 10 bags of 50 kg rice can as well carry petroleum product of the same volume with containers that have large capacities high volume of liquid.
Other industry sources have said there could be diversion of product from trucks that are under the supervision of PEF into another truck that may not be captured by the devices of PEF even after they have gotten to the designated filling stations.
Bolaji Ogundare, chief executive officer, Newcross petroleum Limited said the concept of the PEF is needed in order to ensure a balanced population growth and industrialisation across a large country like Nigeria with poor road networks.
He however said that the effectiveness is varied as compliance and monitoring is subjective in different areas of the country.
He said one of the possible ways to stabilize the PEF is the use of tracking devices across distribution lines. This would have a significant role in minimizing leakages.
On the NNPC claim of 82 million litres of petrol importation, Ogundare observes that while Nigeria may be a high consumption nation whose drive for gasoline consumption is driven by multiple demands including the automotive and manufacturing sector demand, indices for economic growth do not support over a 100% increase in demand over a 12-month period. In summary, it’s possible but the economic growth indices do not support it.
OLUSOLA BELLO AND KELECHI EWUZIE
