By Staff Reporter<\/p>\n
GOVERNMENT says its current system of procuring petroleum products into Zambia is competitive and conforms to the private sector financing standards.<\/p>\n
Energy permanent secretary Brigadier General Emeldah Chola, who featured on ZNBC TV\u2019s Sunday Interview<\/em> programme, explained that the Ministry of Energy followed the Zambia Public Procurement Authority (ZPPA) Act, insofar as procurement was concerned.<\/p>\n Brig Gen. Chola said she did not know what was meant by middlemen, in the procurement of petroleum products.<\/p>\n \u201cYea, you are right, the government is bureaucratic by nature. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s true that it\u2019s inefficient. When you talk about the procurement processes and the middlemen, I don\u2019t know what is meant by middlemen because the process that the ministry follows is as per the ZPPA Act,\u201d Brig Gen. Chola said when programme host Grevazio Zulu asked why her ministry could not allow the private sector to take over the procurement of the country\u2019s feedstock due to the government\u2019s bureaucratic nature.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen there is need for us to float the tender, we do advertise the tender, the quantities that we require and everybody is given chance to participate in that tender. Once we have received the bid, we evaluate and at the end of it we award to the best bidder. So, I don\u2019t know what you mean by middlemen. Where do the middlemen come in? We follow the procedure that has been laid down by ZPPA\u201d.<\/p>\n She indicated that some two years ago, the Ministry of Finance pronounced that: \u201cwe should migrate to the private sector to procure the petroleum products.\u201d<\/p>\n Brig Gen. Chola noted that from that pronouncement, the Ministry of Energy started engaging oil marketing companies (OMCs) and the other players within the industry.<\/p>\n \u201cArising from that, we have come up with a bill which is called the petroleum management bill and this bill is already with Ministry of Justice. Until it is passed into law, the Ministry [of Energy] continues to procure. The system that we have put in place right now is similar to the private sector financing the petroleum products that come in the country,\u201d Brig Gen Chola explained.<\/p>\n \u201cEven with the government [procuring petroleum products], there is competition because when you float the tender various people come and compete and we\u2019ll get value for our money.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about the foreseeable risks if the OMCs took over the procurement of petroleum products now, in the absence of the petroleum management bill, Brig Gen Chola feared that Indeni Refinery in Ndola would not sell its stock.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the risks are that I\u2019ll see a situation where maybe the products that are coming from Indeni will not sell because these people (OMCs) will be bringing in their products. Even if you give them the quotas\u2026. Indeni gives us 50 per cent of the national consumption [and] the other 50 per cent is what is imported,\u201d she said. On why Zambia was not buying its petroleum products from Angola, Brig Gen Chola explained that the country only produced crude.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have yet a pipeline to give us the finished product neither the crude. The crude that is coming from Angola cannot be processed at Indeni,\u201d Brig Gen Chola noted.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the permanent secretary pointed out that smuggling of fuel into Zambia: \u201cis a problem that gives us sleepless nights.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat it means is that Zambia Revenue Authority will not be able to get their taxes if the fuel is smuggled in. There are quite a number of measures that we are putting in place [to counter smuggling of fuel and] one of them is the fuel marking which has been introduced by Energy Regulation Board,\u201d explained Brig Gen Chola.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an invisible bio chemical that is put in the petroleum product. The first time the ERB did an inspection, there was 22 per cent of non-compliance and that is a very big number. This is why we are worried by the smuggling that is going on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Staff Reporter GOVERNMENT says its current system of procuring petroleum products into Zambia is competitive and conforms to the private sector financing standards. Energy permanent secretary Brigadier General Emeldah Chola, who featured on ZNBC TV\u2019s Sunday Interview programme, explained that the Ministry of Energy followed the Zambia Public Procurement Authority (ZPPA) Act, insofar as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10161"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10161"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10163,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10161\/revisions\/10163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cSo, if you gave out to the oil marketing companies, you would see a situation where they will even go beyond 50 per cent. So, you\u2019ll see a situation where the products that are coming from Indeni may not sell.\u201d<\/p>\n