The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers(COPEC), has rejected the BNI’s investigations which cleared the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company (BOST) of any wrong doing in the 5 million liters contaminated fuel saga.
Citi Business News last month revealed that BOST had signed a deal to sell about 5 million liters of contaminated fuel to Movenpiina Energy and Zup Oil at a discounted price that could result in Ghana losing about GHS7 million in revenue.
The Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko who later constituted an 8-member investigative committee to look into the matter later announced at a press conference that the BNI has cleared the BOST MD, Alfred Obeng, of any wrongdoing.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast show, the Executive Director of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers, Duncan Amoah said the BNI was unable to state the true facts of its investigation due to orders from certain authorities.
“I can put this on record and I would personally lead BNI today if they want to get to the bottom of this, they know all the facts on the ground, unfortunately there is some so called bigger hand, bigger men”
He added that he was not the only one who knew of illegal facilities that were used to store contaminated fuel.
“I spoke to some people not long ago and most of them admit they know of these illegal facilities of which Zup Oil is one, is it not intriguing that a facility that handled or managed fuel alreadyhas a storage capacity for five hundred thousand liters. So if you push the BOST issue aside what was Zup Oil handling, even prior to the contaminated product getting to Movenpiina and Zup oil going to buy,” he alleged.
Meanwhile the Chief Executive Officer of the National Petroleum Authority, Hassan Tampuli rebutted that government is not covering the issue since investigations are still ongoing.
He debunked claims that the ministerial committee set up to investigate the matter is no more working.
“What I’m saying is that at this point in time we do not want to second guess the management of BOST. I believe they also have their own internal mechanisms to ascertain exactly how the contamination came about and we want to step back for now and then give the management of BOST the benefit of remedying the situation without interfering at this stage, because I think that these are matters that BOST can handle on its own,” he stressed.
“The ministerial committee has not been discarded and the minister said it very clearly at the press conference,” he added.
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By: Anita Arthur/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
