DPR Blames Fuel Marketers for Capital Flight
Issues new guidelines on fuel imports
By Gloria Achoyamen
The flood of companies engaging in fuel importation following Federal Government deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector, may have been perpetrating capital flight, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), said yesterday.
Speaking at the release of fresh guidelines for fuel importation into the country, the Director, DPR, Mr. Mac Ofurhie, said the department has received an alarm from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on how marketers, under the guise of importing fuel, fleece the country of foreign exchange.
According to Ofurhie, who was represented at the presentation of the guidelines to major oil marketing companies in Lagos, by an assistant director in DPR, Mr. Don Ugorji, marketers were either procuring foreign exchange twice for same product cargo or buying the foreign exchange without utilising it for the purpose.
"Because of this issue, we've had to organise a meeting of stakeholders in Abuja recently," he said.
Marketers are consequently required to give the DPR (the nation's oil industry monitors) at least 24 hours notice for clearance and issuance of certificate for the discharge of a vessel carrying imported fuel "failing which the Navy will be invited to impound the vessel."
Also under the new guidelines, marketers are to obtain local or imported products clearance form, which will state the company's import permit number, the type of product to be imported, the quantity and the name of vessel.
According to the DPR boss, the department will be moving its shipping audit unit to the marketers facilities to ensure compliance, while training of DPR staff would be intensified.
"Certificate of quality of imported products and from local refineries respectively, must be submitted to the DPR staff at the jetties before the berthing of any vessels, while the result of analysis of the composite sample of any product should be submitted to the DPR representatives at the jetties before the vessel will be discharged of the product."
Representatives of the major marketers present at the meeting, however, dissociated themselves from the forex scam through fuel importation
The coast for companies other than the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and major fuel marketers to import fuel, was made clear following implementation of the deregulation policy since 2002.
The CBN had last June also issued new guidelines to be followed by all authorised foreign exchange dealers for the sale of forex to fuel importers. This was seen largely as a move to curb huge foreign exchange demand under the pretext of importing fuel for the country to meet the widening gap in domestic supply.
Nigeria still rely on importation to meet more than 70 percent of her fuel supply needs, following the poor performance of the four local refineries with total installed capacity of 445,000 barrels per day (bpd).
The DPR boss also noted the growing flaws in the Health Safety and Environmental (HSE) operations of major markets in the past one year.
"During the dry season any product with flash point below 47 or 45 should not be bridged. Fire drill should be carried out monthly, while equipment are serviced very well."
Other issues the DPR said it found the marketers wanting include the continued sale of products to unlicensed companies, illegal through-put arrangement, failure to establish laboratories within the depots and construction of structures within the depots without DPR's approval.
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