FG to install trackers on fuel trucks

folarin okunola

April 26, 2016 4:35 PM

The national statistics office blames the shortages for contributing to an 8 percent drop in labour productivity in the fourth quarter

Nigeria's Oil Minister and OPEC president Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu addresses a news conference after a meeting of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna, Austria, December 4, 2015.

Media reports reveal the federal government is planning to plant tracking devices on trucks as nearly a third of the country’s fuel supply is being stolen in the midst of crippling shortages across the country.

Ibe Kachikwu, state minister for petroleum resources, told a town hall meeting in Lagos, the commercial capital on Monday, stated that about 30 percent of Nigeria’s refined fuel is being “diverted” and often smuggled into neighboring countries.

The minister revealed that none of the trucks transporting fuel across the country are being tracked, despite shortages and such in the past year.

“We need a whole army to stop this from happening,” he said, in reference to the widespread theft.

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The national statistics office blames the shortages for contributing to an 8 percent drop in labour productivity in the fourth quarter, according to a Nigeria CommunicationsWeek.

Dolapo Oni, the Lagos-based head of energy research at Ecobank Transnational Inc. said, referring to Project Aquila, which put trackers on gasoline trucks, “They’ve done this before. Drivers tampered with them. It sounds like an interesting idea, but it’s difficult to implement unless you have a sanction for all those operating without a tracker.”

The latest fuel crisis in the country has been worsened by central bank foreign-exchange controls that have left retailers paying higher costs to import supplies at a time when the government has removed subsidies and imposed a price cap at 87 naira per liter ($1.67 a gallon).

folarin okunola