By Arret Jatta
The Former Minister of Petroleum, Honourable Abdoulie Jobe, on Thursday, 24th October 2024 testified before a joint committee of the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) and Public Enterprise Committee (PEC) regarding the $30 million petroleum saga.
While testifying, the Honorable Minister said that the OMCs or the international traders do not pay levies, tax, duties, and VAT on the fuel sold.
“In this country, the OMCs or the international trader does not pay the levies, tax, duties, and VAT on the fuel sold. It is consumers at the pump stations who buy the fuel that pays the tax on the liter of the fuel and the levies, as per the price structure determined by the government every month,” Minister Jobe explained.
Also, he said, OMCs (Oil Marketing Companies) can buy petroleum products from the terminal that goes through GRA, because no product can leave the depot without GRA giving you a declaration.
Additionally, he stated that the OMCs merely collect the money and remit it to GRA declaring that the transaction that takes place at the border is entirely between the OMCs and the trader which is a business relationship.
“Apogee and recently Dimex, a new trader at the other depot, bring product and store it there and make it accessible for our OMCs licensed to pick it from there and sell it within the territory,” Hon. Minister explained further.
He also mentioned policies they made last year in October while continuing in his testimony “After convening meetings with the international traders, and also holding meetings with OMCs at the time, and also noting that some of the smaller OMCs were having issues in accessing products directly from the traders, then we provided this policy number two, which referred to policy number one of 14th of September, as provided in paragraph three. And this policy was merely illustrating the trading that was taking place at the depot level,” he said.
According to the policy “International traders, OMCs, and depositors of petroleum products at the storage depots facilitate the availability of the products to licenced operators in the country to have access to products.
“In this regard, the product owner with stocks at the depot can choose to instruct a buyer to pay an invoice into a foreign bank account as per the agreed commercial firms, effecting the payments in Gambian Dalasi (GM) however, remains the preferred option”.
