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Uganda’s bid to supply low-cost fuel got off to a messy start last week with the landlocked country now being charged millions of dollars more by Kenya in bond fees, just 12 hours after the first batch of petroleum products for Uganda National Oil Company (Unoc) landed in Mombasa.
Ahead of Unoc’s long-awaited arrival of first fuel imports on July 2, government officials in Kampala gave conflicting figures of the expected consignment, which triggered suspicion of a smuggling racket among Kenyan authorities, as the numbers contradicted facts on shipping documents, The EastAfrican has learnt.
This prompted the then Cabinet Secretary for Energy Davis Chirchir to direct the Kenya Revenue Authority to slap a US$40 million bond fees bill on Vitol’s storage facility at the port – an increase of US$25 million – and not to load the fuel into the Kenya Pipeline over the extra 17 000 cubic metres of diesel that was undeclared.
On July 11, the Business Daily reported that shipping documents reviewed by the paper indicated that Unoc’s maiden fuel cargo exceeded what was declared, raising questions about Kampala’s push for direct fuel imports.
Tony Otoa, Unoc’s chief corporate affairs officer maintains that the firm’s diesel cargo, amounting to 80 000MT was all declared. – The East African
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