Non-compliant Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) should brace themselves to face the full wrath of the law as the newly appointed Chief Executive of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, has warned of massive cancellation of operating licenses of these marketers.
According to him, he would be excited to revoke licenses of 80 oil marketing companies who were just sitting in the books of the NPA and were not working or lifting products or paying taxes.
Dr. Abdul Hamid, who served the notice to the board of Association of Oil Marketing Companies (AOMCs) as part of his familiarization visits to petroleum downstream players, said: “I will be very excited for the world to hear that I have revoked the licenses of 80 OMCs because what is their need?
“If I have 100 or even 70 OMCs who are all efficient, and are playing by the rules and are paying their revenues to the government, we will be fine,” he emphasized.
He said it was absurd for a small country like Ghana to have 170 OMCs when the larger nations had fewer marketers.
“So why are we signing all these licenses?” he quizzed.
He admitted the NPA had not been cracking the whip and “yes we are lax in the implementation processes. People just go through the loopholes”.
“It just upsets me that in this country everybody is in the conspiracy to run down this country. That attitude upset me. All of us! 30 million Ghanaians we are in a conspiracy to run down this country,” he angrily stated.
Citing his recent experience upon assumption of office, he said an influential person sent someone to him to assist in applying for an OMC license.
He then called the Director in-charge of Licensing at NPA to assist the person.
“The next day I called the Director of Licensing and told him even though the person was sent by a big man, I want you to make sure he meets every single requirement. I said to him do not take it that because I said it is this big man you are going to lower the bar for him to enter the market.
“So, it is not something I am joking about. People need to see in the public space that there is a new NPA and that we are prepared to muscle it out with people. In this country, we all need for once to show that there are some principled human beings in our country,” Dr. Abdul-Hamid stated.
The NPA boss revealed the Authority under his leadership was going to strengthen the sanctions and inspections regime to make it uncomfortable for crooks in the industry who were not playing by the rules.
The new Chairman of the AOMCs, Felix Gyekye, on his part, pledged the board’s unflinching support to the new NPA Chief Executive and said they were ready to work with him to expose the fraudulent ones who were desperately trying to undermine the decency of the operations.
Source: 3news.com|Ghana
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