Controversial fuel licences will be revoked as soon as PPP takes over – Jagdeo

Jan 22, 2019 News

By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
A People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government will not allow the present “lawlessness” that is reigning on the local fuel market, to continue. “We will put a stop to it,” said Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo. This was at the most recent press conference held at his Church Street Office.
Jagdeo told the media that government willfully turned a blind eye to the ongoing fuel racket involving senior officials “because even ministers know what is going on.”
Jagdeo went on to say that the PPP, if elected, would revoke many existing fuel licences, especially those granted post-2015 General and Regional Elections.
Jagdeo said, “Many of the licences would be revoked, because they are renting their licences. I heard the vessels are going to Morawhanna, (North West District, Region One) and they are buying the fuel there, creating shortages for Port Kaituma and all these areas.”
Specifically, Atlantic Fuels Inc. has been accused of this.
The company got its import, storage and wholesale licence approved in late 2015.
There has been intense scrutiny about the procedures.
Atlantic Fuels received its licence in just over a month after application, a rapid approval compared to the months that others have applied and had to wait.
According to officials, it is not unknown for the Guyana Energy Agency to grant licences and then these are rented out to importers by the holders of those licences.
Jagdeo said, “All those holders of licences with close ties to the government who have been renting their licences will have to answer. We will revoke the licences”.
Jagdeo said that since 2015, PPP has been “trying to draw the attention of the government to the huge leakage that was taking place in revenue because of this issue…but they ignored it totally.”
“Because we are close to election, they are creating an impression that they are going to address it. I think that if we were not this close to election they would have just swept it under the carpet as they have done before. They knew about it, senior people in government know, ministers know about this, I think they are receiving payments too because of the racket,” said Jagdeo.
While initial reports reaching this newspaper suggested that Guyana is losing hundreds of millions of dollars because of fuel smuggling, Jagdeo said that it is more of a “multi-billion-dollar racket.”