NPA must arrest perpetrators of premix fuel diversion – Fisheries Minister

Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture, Elizabeth Afoley Quaye, appears to be indifferent about her role in addressing the problem of pre-mix fuel diversion in the country as alleged by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA).

According to her, the ministry does not have a tracking system to identify culprits hence the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), which has a system to track such happenings “must take action.”

“They have the trackers, the NPA by law is supposed to be monitoring the supply and distribution of the pre-mix fuel, and it is the NPA that has that authority to be prosecuting offenders.

So I told the NPA that the moment you find somebody perpetuating this crime, you arrest this person on the spot. The NPA has the tracker. As I sit here, I don’t have any tracker, I don’t have a tracking system to tell who is diverting pre-mix fuel or not,” the minister said on Eyewitness News on Tuesday.

She added that, “we have made requests to the NPA to allow us to also have access to the tracking system to be able to tell who is diverting and who is not” but that was yet to be granted.

The NPA in series of letters dated between January and October 2017, informed the National Pre-mix fuel Committee and the Fisheries Ministry to take action against some Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) that are involved in the diversion of the product meant for fisher-folk in the country’s coastal communities.

The OMCs, according to the letter, took supply of the pre-mix fuel at the Tema Oil Refinery supposedly to be supplied to fishing communities outside Accra; however, they ended up supplying them within Accra often to industries.

The development, which has persisted for several months, appear to be a major factor for the collapsing fishing industry, with a decline in local fish production and increase in fish imports.

But in a rather combative interview, Madam Afoley Quaye said she was informed that the supposed diverted pre-mix fuels were duly received.

She said, “I went to the landing beaches to find out exactly what they were doing there, and the members of the landing beach committees gave me documents to prove that they have actually received the pre-mix fuel.”

This claim by the Minister is however at variance with the NPA letters which also confirmed that in the 249 diversions recorded, some of the landing beaches made receipts available, but in actual fact, they never received the product.

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