Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid
ABOUT 26 Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have been sanctioned by the Disciplinary Committee of the Board of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) for engaging in third-party supply of either oil or gas, Chief Executive of the Authority, Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid has disclosed.
He said third-party supply has been an illegality as far as the petroleum sector is concerned, intimating that for the first time in the history of NPA, “We are hauling third-party suppliers before the disciplinary committee of the board.”
“And as I speak, about 26 OMCs have been sanctioned by the disciplinary committee of the board of the NPA,” he told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament during its sitting yesterday.
According to him, the move has sent some shivers into the industry that “this time third-party supplies are not just going to be tackled with verbal warnings and so on.”
“People are going to clamp down and clamp down decisively. Perhaps, that is the reason why there is not so much noise in the space about third-party supplies,” Dr. Abdul-Hamid indicated.
He asserted that the NPA depends solely on fees and levies, pointing out that as many as 120 OMCs out of the 172 OMCs are failing to pay their licence fees.
“Really and truly, contrary to public perception, the NPA is not as financially solid as the public perceives because most of these OMCs come with what they call ‘payment plan’ for a licence fee of GHȼ200,000, and he will say I will pay GHȼ50,000 in January, and others,” he posited.
“Of course, because of all of us, who we are and our interconnectivity, the tendency for NPA is to always grant these deferred payments. And when that happens, many people then …for those who persistently default, we deactivate them from the system, and they are no longer to load fuel,” the NPA boss submitted.
He explained that “so what the Hon Member means by third-party supply is that whilst you know that for example, Hamid Oil is not supposed to be operating, you go round and see that Hamid Oil Filling Station is dispensing fuel.”
“This means that somebody else has supplied them with the fuel and therefore they also end up defaulting in paying this third-party supplier and then taxes and levies continue to suffer,” he stated.
BY Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House