Fri, 07 Jul 2017 10:53:07 +0000
By BENNIE MUNDANDO
A HIGHLY organised syndicate in which TAZAMA has continued selling fuel to Lake Petroleum despite the company facing sanctions from ZRA and ERB for illegally importing fuel into Zambia has been unearthed.
In March this year, a combined team of officers from the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) and Energy Regulation Board (ERB) impounded tankers belonging to Lake Petroleum after a tip off from Zambian tanker drivers that the company was illegally ferrying fuel into the country using forged documents and purporting that the commodity belonged to the Zambian Government when in fact not as the company was feeding the Continental Oil depot in Kapiri-Mposhi which it was using for storage before distributing to its service stations.
ZRA fined the company K 4.60 million in addition to seizing 12 of its tankers which it said would be auctioned and instituted investigations to ascertain the company’s activities in the past five years while ERB banned the company from importing, exporting and distributing the commodity across the country but said the firm was still allowed to run its service stations.
However, a source within TAZAMA has told the Daily Nation that all the sanctions purported to have been slapped on Lake Petroleum were artificial as the company had continued distributing fuel across its service station with the help of some senior officials in the sector, including top management at TAZAMA who were helping the company distribute its commodity across the country.
The source, who provided a receipt and invoice to the Daily Nation, said all the threats that some institutions were making over the matter were aimed at concealing the rot that the company was involved in because there were “big people” who were playing accomplices to the illegality.
The source said while ERB was portraying a picture that Lake Petroleum was no longer distributing the commodity to its service stations, the company was actively involved in the sector and challenged the ERB to state exactly what it was doing to monitor the company’s activities after imposing the sanctions on it.
“Right now, Lake Petroleum has continued distributing fuel across the country and they are getting the commodity from here (TAZAMA). I have provided these receipts to substantiate what I am talking about because we have seen a lot of inconsistencies in the manner our institutions are handling this case.
“Do you think the ministry cannot do anything? Didn’t you hear the minister contradicting himself with ZRA? He made it clear that the punishment slapped on Lake Petroleum so far is enough, yet ZRA is still investigating the matter. What other outcome are we expecting from them? Nothing will work out,” the source said.
