By Tabora Bojang
Momodou Hydara, the General Manager of Jah Oil, one of the oil marketing companies (OMCs) in the country, yesterday told the National Assembly inquiry on the importation and sale of fuel from a Russian ship that the national depot, Gam Petroleum, created a monopoly for Apogee FZC, (owners of fuel from a Russian oil ship) to store their products at the depot, while rejecting requests for storage by licensed local oil marketing companies.
Apogee FZC, a Dubai-based company registered in the Gambia is being investigated together with Creed Energy Limited and Ultimate Biege Logistics over allegations that they imported and sold about 36,935.614 metric tons of fuel from a Russian oil ship, from which no tax was paid to the state.
The enquiry which continues at the National Assembly came after a motion was filed by Hon Sainey Jawara of Lower Saloum who said his investigations have discovered that the Russian oil was brought into the country and sold under suspicious circumstances with no tax being paid and highly placed officials allegedly receiving over half a million dalasis monthly to look other way.
The Central Bank too is investigating the activities of the bank accounts of the companies involved for possible money laundering. The enquiry has already had evidence that the procedure and rule of importing and storing of fuel in the country was changed allowing the owners of the Russian oil to directly store fuel at the national depot without the awareness of at least two permanent secretaries at the ministry of finance.
In his testimony before the enquiry, the Jah Oil manager revealed that many Gambian registered OMCs felt so “disheartened” to realise that a trader in the name of Apogee, who very little is known about, was given over 80 percent of the Gam Petroleum storage facility at the expenses of locally registered companies, contravening the existing norms and regulations at the depot.
He said Apogee’s activities from mid-2023 until when it recently ended up its operations in the country, has posed unprecedented difficulties to OMCs as most of them were unable to buy fuel from external suppliers because their applications for storage at the depot were numerously denied by Gam Petroleum.
Hydara said because of these denials by Gam Petroleum some OMCs were compelled to buy Apogee’s fuel in order to avoid closure of their fuel stations.
“We had a problem because we were struggling to bring vessels and also store our fuel like we are used to doing. Apogee was having all the space and OMCs especially major ones who are ordering fuel on a regular basis are rejected. Every time we apply for storage it is a rejection,” he told the enquiry.
According to Hydara, Gam Petroleum officials will always cite problems of storage spaces at the depot which has not been the case.
“When it became obvious that rejections are becoming too much, we monitored the situation to verify whether it is true that there are no storage spaces left at the depot. So we looked into the depot’s stock report and realised that there is enough space at the depot, about 9000 metric tons. We then confirmed with other OMCs to clarify if that space is reserved for them but none of them confirmed applying except one whose request was also rejected. So, we wrote back to the General Manager of Gam Petroleum requesting for explanations as to why our applications for storage were rejected even though space was available but that didn’t go down well with the General Manager and instead of focusing on matters that I am requesting in my letter it ended up being a personal attack and his response was not nice to me,” Hydara told the enquiry.
He added that following this episode with the depot’s General Manager, he wrote a protest letter to regulators PURA and the Ministry of Petroleum about these irregularities and PURA responded by urging Gam Petroleum that it cannot allocate 80 percent of the space to Apogee while others are struggling.
The Jah Oil GM further revealed that the only option they got from the Ministry with regards to their protest letter was for them to find an alternative to dock their fuel vessel in Senegal and be transporting it over land to the Gambia which he said they did.
He confirmed that at some point Jah Oil had to buy the Russian oil, but only on three occasions, and it was for them to keep their fuel stations running until they find a new supplier following the winding up of their traditional supplier.
He also confirmed that when they bought the fuel from Apogee the invoice and the receipts were issued in the name of Creed Energy.
Hydara further explained to NAMs that previously the activities of international traders are limited at bringing products and supplying the OMC who ordered from them.
“The activities of international traders are limited within the high seas but it is the OMCs that are registered and licensed in this country who take it to the national level, but for the first time I saw an international trader being nationally involved. It has never been the norm,” he said.
Hydara added that the monopoly given to Apogee almost created a situation which could have been “catastrophic” for the country because the situation was so untenable that some OMCs like Jah Oil considered closing operations to wait until space is available at the depot.
