A new twist into the highly guarded smuggling of 30,000 metric tonnes of petroleum into the country by Gulf Energy Limited on the New Year’s Eve has emerged potentially incriminating top government officials, senior parastatal officers and oil-tenderpreneurs, Nairobi Exposed has learnt.
According to insider sources, the officials at the Ministry of Petroleum and Mining are said to have offered a safe veil of shield to invisible but well-connected team code-named “elite group” to facilitate clearance of the consignment at the Port of Mombasa.
Our sources also intimated the timing was also conducive to evade possible detection.
Records show that the vessel, M/T Jag Prerana, was allowed to offload the fuel, worth billions of shillings, by officials from the Ministry of Petroleum following a request from oil marketer Gulf Energy despite the fact that it was not among the firms prequalified to bring in the commodity.
Joseph Wafula, Chief Economist at the Ministry of Petroleum directed clearance of the consignment upon payment of the requisite levies and taxes on December 30, 2021.
Charles Nyakundi, Supply and Trading Manager at Gulf Energy had written to the ministry and the Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) seeking clearance for the cargo to be offloaded.
Through a protest letter to Petroleum and Mining Principal Secretary (PS) Andrew Kamau, Oil Marketers Association of Kenya (OMAK) questioned how Gulf Energy Limited imported 30,000MT of gasoline for an “elite” group of oil marketers without knowledge of the all-other oil marketing companies (OMCs).
OMAK says the timing for both arrival and discharge of the cargo by Gulf Energy was meant never to be discovered due to the festivities and now wants the ministry to investigate the matter.
“You are aware that the Petroleum Act of 2019 outlaws all private imports for refined petroleum products into the country. As the custodian of the OTS document, we believe that the ministry should continue protecting the authority of the document. Allowing such imports undermines the document and can easily lead to acrimony in the Oil industry,” read part of the letter.
The association wants the ministry to investigate when the cargo was tendered for and if so through which medium was it tendered that all their members did not get to know about it neither got an opportunity to participate in the sharing of the cargo.
They also want to know how one OMC, Gulf Energy Limited, considered to deliver the cargo without going through the normal tender process.
Further, the association also wants to know who the beneficiaries of the cargo are.
“The vessel that should be discharging currently is the MT Sloane Square delivering Gasoil, and is now sitting outside while demurrage is accumulating, who will pay for this demurrage?” posed the association.
“With this recklessness we are left with no choice other than to institute a legal suit to all the concerned parties,” OMAK added.
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