Members of the Pre-mix taskforce being inaugurated
NATIONAL PRE-MIX Committee is collaborating with the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to crack down on pre-mix hoarding in the country.
They are targeting people who buy pre-mix fuel, divert the product and resell at higher prices, thereby frustrating the fishing business.
Premix is the single most subsidized petroleum product ever, an intervention carefully formulated to boost the local fishing industry, by ensuring that the product actually serves the fishing purpose for which it is intended.
Available data shows that the government has increased outlets by 100 per cent since 2017, yet the activities of unscrupulous middlemen and the use of the fuel for alternative purposes have denied poor fishermen access to the vital product.
The National Pre-Mix Secretariat teamed up with the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) to inaugurate the TMA Premix Monitoring Taskforce with the mandate to ensure that all such bad practices are curbed without delay.
The National Pre-mix Fuel Chairman, Edward Nii Lantey Bannerman, said at the inauguration that “hoarding and resale of the pre-mix fuel after it has been delivered at the beach is still a challenge to us. We are looking at getting the National Security Operatives to step in to help us.”
He was worried that some of the fishers have also turned themselves into middlemen who buy, hoard the fuel and resell at exorbitant prices, adding that they would all be dealt with.
According to him, this year, his outfit has started engaging regional ministers and district chief executives who are at places where pre-mix is used to ensure the product gets to the final users.
He also said the National Pre-mix Committee was working out plans to digitize the sale of the product in future through the use of cards by fishermen to prevent hoarding and inflated prices.
The Metropolitan Chief Executive of TMA, Mr. Felix Mensah Nii Annang-La, was excited about the progress made in the pre-mix industry and promised to intensify the monitoring to ensure the products get to the right users at the right price.
From Vincent Kubi, Tema