EFCC Probes Marketers, PEF Officials over Fraudulent Claims on Bridging Funds

As the country continues to grapple with inadequate availability of petrol at most retail outlets across the country, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has commenced the investigation of some major and independent marketers of petroleum products who submitted claims for bridging funds for fuel that was not delivered to the filling stations.

The anti-graft agency is also probing some officials of the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) for their alleged connivance with the marketers to make fraudulent claims for the payment of bridging funds.

The Executive Secretary of PEF, Mrs. Asabe Asmau Ahmed, could not be reached for comment while the spokesman of the agency, Mr. Goddy Nnadi, declined to comment, saying the matter was under investigation.

But a member of the PEF management board told THISDAY on the condition of anonymity, that the new Executive Secretary who invited EFCC for the investigation, had also redeployed all PEF staff in Kaduna State, while those suspected to have aided the attempted fraud are helping EFCC in their investigations.

Under the PEF scheme, which is administered by the PEF Management Board, marketers that transport petrol to a minimum distance of 450 kilometres and above are entitled to transport claim, otherwise called bridging claim, which is N11.82 per litre for products moved from depots across distances that qualify for the claims.

The scheme, which is aimed at ensuring that petrol is sold at the uniform official price across the country, also provides that for distances below 450 kilometres, marketers are paid equalisation or inter-district claims which is however less than the bridging rate.
To ensure that marketers do not make false claims, a marketer who moves a truck of petrol from a Lagos depot to Kaduna State, for instance, must report at the NNPC depot in Kaduna for documentation by officials of PEF before the product is moved to any filling station within the areas covered by Kaduna depot, which is one of the 21 NNPC depots across the country.

The manager of the filling station who receives the product must also sign the out-turn report showing that the product has been delivered for the marketer to be entitled to bridging claims.

THISDAY’s investigation, however, revealed that some marketers who claimed to have lifted products from Lagos depots to Kaduna depot are being investigated by the EFCC after submitting false claims for the payment of bridging for petrol that was not delivered.
“The marketers did not bring the product to the Kaduna depot but wanted to claim bridging for products not delivered. We discovered the fraud and our new Executive Secretary invited the EFCC. All our staff in Kaduna have been replaced with new people, while those who have questions to answer are helping the EFCC,” said a top official of PEF.

THISDAY also gathered that due to inadequate supply of petrol from NNPC, marketers do not sell it in major cities and towns but at the outskirts, where they can sell above the official price without sanction by the regulatory agencies.

One of the marketers told THISDAY yesterday that the problem was not about diversion but unavailability, which has led to high prices.
“Most depots in Lagos and Calabar, for instance, loaded for N94 per litre yesterday. For you to move the product from Calabar to Enugu or Kogi, you will incur an additional cost of N4 per litre on transportation, making it N98. So you cannot sell it at official pump price.

“The only way out is not to sell at Enugu metropolis to avoid DPR. You could instead sell it in filling stations along the Enugu-Onitsha or Enugu-Makurdi expressways or anywhere inside the hinterlands.

“The same thing happens to petrol that is meant for Lagos and Abuja. That is why you don’t find petrol inside the cities. The product that is supposed to be sold inside Lagos is being sold along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, while Abuja-Suleja roads are flooded with petrol but there is none in the cities,” he explained.

He said the allegation of diversion was meant to distract attention from the inability of NNPC to bridge the shortfall in supply arising from the refusal of private marketers to import due to unpaid subsidy claims.