A pump attendant fills a fuel tank in Kampala. . PHOTO/Abubaker Lubowa
The government has introduced a digital monitoring system to track dealers transferring red-flagged fuel stations to other operators in an attempt to elude penalties.
The solution, a joint initiative by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development and Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), will be key in apprehending non-compliant fuel stations that evade penalties by transferring ownership to new players nationwide.
Speaking during a fuel marking and quality monitoring awareness workshop with local leaders in the Greater Masaka, Mr Peter Kitimbo, the Fuel Marking and Quality Monitoring Supervisor, said that when some fuel stations are found to be non-compliant, they undergo four stages of penalisation; however, towards the final stage, which involves revoking the license, non-compliant fuel stations transfer ownership to new players without informing the Ministry of Energy.
“We shall assign stickers with unique identifiers and GPS coordinates to each fuel station. With this technology, we can identify who the fuel station owner is, and under this new arrangement, the new owner will be responsible for all the non-compliance penalties of the previous owner,” he said at the workshop, in which stakeholders called for regulation of single pumps in hard-to-reach areas.
“We have seen standards applying to retail stations, but we have many single pumps off the main roads, and they do not meet the standards. Who regulates them?” Mr Tonny Odek, a participant, wondered.
However, in response, Rev Justaf Frank Tukwasibwe, the Ministry of Energy commissioner for petroleum supply, said that whereas the current laws only cover fuel filling stations and service stations, it was possible to work on laws that can regulate single pumps.
“We must appreciate the status quo. We have come from a time of shortages to a few fuel operators in the country and now to many competitors. We also appreciate that deep in the villages, where boda-bodas are the main means of transport, oil companies have yet to reach them,” he said.
Tukwasibwe also decried the new challenges regarding compliance that existing laws cannot adequately tackle.
“The most appropriate thing to do, however, is to look at our MPs who are responsible for making laws to examine this issue more critically and draft the laws governing single pumps,” he added.
Before the workshop, UNBS and MEMD conducted sensitisation campaigns with the public in the Greater Masaka region at Buwama, Lukaya, Matete, Sembabule, Rushere, Lyantonde, and Masaka.
The Fuel Marking and Quality Monitoring Programme is designed to control and monitor the quality of petroleum products throughout the entire supply chain in the country.
