President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has unmasked a huge scam around some top officials who import the so-called ‘Government to Government’ fuel (aka G2G) only to end up offloading huge amounts on the Ugandan market at exorbitant rates.
In a long post on his X handle, on Sunday evening, President Museveni wondered why his own Minister ignored him on buying fuel from the market and transport it to through Kenya.
Fellow Ugandans and, especially, the Bazzukulu. Greetings.
I have a number of issues to share with you. Let me start with the kuseerwa (being over-charged) for the petroleum products from abroad. When we came into Government, we assumed that the Civil Servants would deal with money, administration, procurement, etc., and we would deal with policy, ideology, strategy, security, etc.
However, in a number of cases, these wonderful People, really let down their country. Take the issue of importation of petroleum products. Uganda imports petroleum products of the magnitude of 2.5billion litres per annum valued at about US$ 2bn.
Without my knowledge, our wonderful People, were buying this huge quantity of petroleum products from middlemen in Kenya. A whole country buying from middlemen in Kenya or anywhere else!! Amazing but true.
Why not buy from the Refineries abroad and transport through Kenya and Tanzania, cutting out the cost created by middlemen? Those involved were not bothered by these issues.
Some few years ago, I got to know this information from whistle-blowers. I handed the matter to Minister Kituttu to handle. About a year ago, I got to know that the matter was never handled. When I studied the issue, I discovered that we lose so much by buying through the middlemen.
A check on one occasion a few months ago, showed that the middlemen were selling us petroleum products at prices as indicated below per tonne:
- Diesel:
- Middlemen’s price – $118;
- Price from bulk suppliers or Refiners -$83;
- Petrol:
- Middlemen’s price -$97.5;
- Bulk suppliers or Refiners’ price- $61.5;
- Kerosene:
- Middlemen’s price – $114;
- Bulk suppliers or Refiners’ price – $79
These are prices when the products have arrived at the East African Ports. You can see the huge loss Uganda has been incurring on account of our wonderful People.
In Kenya, the attention shifts to Gulf Energy who won the G2G supply contract in unclear circumstances.
The buck will stop at the doorstep of Energy and Petroleum CS Davis Chirchir and the Energy & Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) led by Daniel Kiptoo.
Questions will also be asked about the exact amounts of fuel sold in Uganda and for which Kenyan taxpayers would have already paid advance
The Kenya Government is yet to respond to the chilling revelations from Uganda leader who takes no prisoners in expressing his opinion.
His ‘undiplomatic’ style of release of the Kenyan fuel scam could show a very frustrated man.
