*Stake Holders Democracy Network, insist petrol sold to Nigerians from Europe ‘dirtier’ than that from Illegal artisanal refineries
*Says government has ignored the recommendation of its 2020 report which remains the benchmark in the industry
*Decries the absence of quality control measure for fuel imported into the country
*Importers of substandard fuel must be held accountable–Buhari
By our correspondents
A PortHarcourt based international resource watchdog group, Stakeholder Democracy Network, (SDN) has said the latest incident involving the importation of 100 million litters of toxic fuel into the country vindicates its 2020 report on how toxic fuel was being imported from Europe into Nigeria
The SDN’s Programme Manager, Jessy Martin Nanufor in an exclusive interview with Daybreak newspaper said, in the year 2020 the NGO did a research looking at the quality of fuel been used in Nigerian to ascertain its quality. “So we looked at both the one domestically produced by artisanal or local illegal oil refineries as well as the fuels that are been imported from Europe and sold at major fillings stations in Nigeria we took samples of this fuel. These samples were collected from major filling stations not independent marketers. Our findings shows that the fuel being imported to Nigeria have high sulphur content as well as the once been locally manufactured by artisanal or illegal local refiners. But the striking thing was that in terms of sulphur content the fuel manufactured locally by artisanal refineries were of better quality when compared to the fuel that was imported to the country”
This highlighted that a lot of imported fuel from abroad were of poor quality this gave us concern as to why Nigeria a country that has huge oil resources should be importing poor quality fuel. We also tried to get across to the relevant agency such as Standard O rganization of Nigeria, NNPC, as well as DPR to know who was responsible for the quality control when this fuel comes into the country who is supposed to ascertain the quality of this fuel before it’s put into the tanks at the deport.
But unfortunately of all the relevant government angecies that we spoke to no one was able to clearly tell us what the process is or what was in terms of ascertaining the quality of fuel we have in the country.
So from our conclusion we say that fuel comes into this country without any quality control at all” He said.
He noted that the findings of SDN in 2020 also have a strong linkage with an earlier report that was done in Netherlands by an organization called Public Eye.
“Their findings shows that refineries in Europe are sending poor quality fuel to countries in Africa that do not have any standard of the quality of fuel they should have in the country.
He also revealed that after the research SDN has tried to look at the ECOWAS as a region and trying to create a standard for fuel quality across the region, working with relevant bodies.
“We tried to follow up that process. Sometimes last year it was brought to Nigeria to spin off an agree to that effect but that process at the moment we don’t know the status weather Nigeria has come up with the ECOWAS standard”
On the way forward he said that government should look at the ways of fixing its refineries as well as looking at putting processes in place to standardize or modernize the informal sector. “either looking at modular refineries or whatever system that we can have an internal capacity to produce petroleum products in the country. We also mentioned that Nigeria should adopt the ECOWAS standard for fuel quality not only adopted but to enforce the standard”
He noted that when their report came out in 2020 It’s was an eye openner to the international community as to what is happening in the country. He dried the fact that the relevant agencies didn’t take it serious, “they must have felt that it is one of those things that an NGO will just come out and talk but SDN is a research focus organization you just don’t come out and start a report without doing research and making sure that it’s up to standard I will say that the happenings now although sad but it also has kind of vindicates us and shown that our research of 2020 was topnotch”
Therefore it’s way sad for the country as a whole to have imported over 100million liters of contaminated fuel into the country. Now that it has happened perhaps all the necessary regulators and the relevant bodies should talk to find a solution to this abysmal performance and find a way to have steady supply of fuel in the country as a way to stop poisoning our country because all this poor quality fuel also have impact not just on vehicles but also on health of the environment because this fuel will burn poorly and it will contribute to climate change causing air pollution and all that. It’s now a clarion call to the government to put its acts together and also an opportunity for the government to fix this and assure Nigerians that the quality of the product we have in the country are up to standard”
Importers of substandard fuel must be held accountable says Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered that producers and providers of consumable products be held accountable for substandard services and or products sold by them.
The President has also given directives to the relevant government agencies to take every step in line with the laws of the country to ensure the respect and protection of consumers against market abuses and social injustices.
A statement by Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu said this was in reaction to the issue of petroleum product shortages linked to the inadvertent supply of products of foreign origin into the Nigerian market, President Buhari said the protection of consumer interests is a priority of the present administration and is ready to take all necessary measures to protect consumers from hazardous products, loss or injuries from the consumption of substandard goods.
The President directed that in line with the law, service providers must make full disclosure of relevant information with respect to the consumption of their products and that dissatisfied consumers are entitled to a proper redress of their complaints.
