We have taken notice of a publication with the above caption in the Goldstreet Business newspaper published on Friday, January 10, 2020 and we wish to clarify a few issues therein as follows:
- In the fourth paragraph on the second page of the paper, the writer alleges that BOST admits to losing $2 Million per month to transmission losses. We wish to state that, fuel distribution/transmission across the country is not done at the cost of BOST and the company cannot be said to be losing anything to transmission. The claim is unfounded and couldn’t have come from BOST.
- The distribution of petroleum products across the country is a two-stage process: primary and secondary distribution. Both stages are funded fully by specific taxes in the petroleum price build-up which is collected by the Ghana Revenue Authority, GRA, and paid through the National Petroleum Authority, NPA, the regulator of the petroleum downstream. Transport service providers present their bills with supporting documents to BOST and the claims are made on the fund at NPA. The funds received are then paid to the transporters less the value of any shortages recorded in the values they successfully deliver at the various BOST Depots.
- Primary distribution/transmission is the movement of product from the BOST receiving depot to other BOST depots across the country. This is funded by the Primary Distribution Margin, PDM.
- Secondary distribution/transmission is when products are loaded from BOST depots and discharged at various Oil Marketing Company, OMC, sales points across the country. This is funded by the Uniform Petroleum Price Fund, UPPF.
- This means, the petroleum product consumer who pays for products consumed pays for the cost of transmission in the process. BOST does not pay for product transmission across the country.
We would like to assure the general public that all efforts are being made to ensure that petroleum products are made available across the country at reasonable prices at all times.
Meanwhile the threat of product contamination as the paper rightly stated is fully eliminated and in the event it occurs, the company is limited to blending, re-refining or competitive tendering for the disposal of such products. In addition to these, any officials found culpable of any such development as the Managing
Director rightly stated will be surcharged with the full value of the product concerned less any value realized from the listed processes.
