The Giant Score Card Of PEF: Great Reforms In the Petroleum Pricing, Transportation Sector

The Presidential Equalization Fund Management Board was set up in 1975 to ensure stability and equality in prices of petroleum products across the country has done creditably well in the past 5 years of Ahmed Bobboi’s leadership.

By Mike Odeh James & Ibrahim Mada

First and foremost, the PEMFB had in those years completely eradicated the issue of fuel scarcity, price disparity in certain parts of the country which had bedecked the country for over 20 years.

It achieved this feat by putting in place a system which ensured that marketers are compensated for losses they may have suffered in trucking their products from depots to filling stations all over Nigeria.

Today, petroleum products are available in all parts of the country at the same price due to the mechanism adopted by the PEMFB.

Secondly, the PEMFB has ensured the disappearance of queues in filling stations across the country. The issue of perennial scarcity of fuel or indiscriminate fuel price hike is also a thing of the past.

This, it does by reimbursing a marketer’s transportation differentials for petroleum products movement from depots to their sales outlets or filling stations, in order to ensure that products are sold at a uniform pump price throughout the country.

One of the major problems bedeviling the petroleum sector is the diversion of petroleum products and fuel by unscrupulous Nigerians working with transporters of the products.

The actions of these Nigerians had in the past cost the nation billions of naira. However, the PEFMB has found a counter to it.

According to Eniola Olakunri, the Director of Oats Global Energy, the PEF developed the Aquila Project which has greatly reduced the aforementioned malaise.

Olakunri said “In taking the gains of Aquila further, Bobboi led Board embarked on a more extensive Information Technology drive that will ensure real time monitoring and data processing of petrol movement(s) in Nigeria to the last mile, that is, the filling stations.

“Currently, the unflagging team, (in collaboration with the National Information Technology Development Agency), are spearheading the deployment of the Downstream Automated Fuel Management Information System’ (DAFMIS), primed to bolstering all operational processes within the organisation; a move deemed quite innovative and that which will be beneficial to all stakeholders in the industry.

One unique feature of DAFMIS is its distinct Fuel Monitoring System (FMS), which Olakunri further explained “provides for an electronic eye (sensor network) which spawns near real time information on ships, tank Farms, depots, pipelines, trucks and filling stations. This is an ingenious idea which guarantees that the movements of products are tracked everywhere and on the go.

“Also, more than 550 trucks are currently being retrofitted for the scheme. It does not end there. Fuel in the storage tanks of filling stations can also be monitored remotely, country wide. In effect, any station hoarding fuel for whatever reason would be caught out and be sanctioned accordingly.

“DAFMIS is structured to cut waste, improve efficiency and plug loopholes in the petrol distribution chain. Other features of this inventive solution include: Business Improvement: poised to upgrade the work processes between departments as well as on-field operations for overall efficiency of the Board,” he added

Speaking on the same issue, the Executive Secretary of PEF, Ahmed Bobboi, warned that there would be no hiding place for those involved in diverting petroleum products as his organization has commenced electronic monitoring of distributions and transportation of petroleum products across the country.

Bobboi explained that “We monitor the movement of the product electronically so that when the products are loaded we know what quantity was loaded and the destination it is going to.

When we get to the Depot, we also know the quantity that arrived safely, and then distributed to the marketers so that these marketers will also sell within their own method of operation and also at the appropriate price,” he said.

In furtherance of the mandate given the PEF, another salient but noticeably effect of the organization is the availability of cooking gas in all the nooks and crannies of the country.

Ibrahima Yakubu of Radio Deutchweille who monitored the progress made by PEF in ensuring that cooking gas is available at an affordable price, had this say:

“The PEF is doing a fantastic job of ensuring that deforestation is curbed by making sure that even rural populace gets cooking gas.

“Now the rate of women cutting down trees as fuel is gradually decreasing, thanks to the PEF”, he added.

During the period of the lockdown occasioned by the novel corona virus, inflation rose steeply and prices of foodstuffs rose along, the situation could have been made worse if the PEF had defaulted on its primary duties. 

The PEF ensured that fuel was available throughout the 36 States of the Federation and at stable price till the Federal Government and Stakeholders agreed on incremental fuel pump price moves.

Indeed the PEF has performed beyond the expectations of ordinary Nigerians. No wonder, President Muhammad Buhari showered praises of Ahmed Bobboi when he approved his reappointment as Executive Secretary.

Buhari said “Bobboi got his reappointment for having run PEF in a way that made it a key and strategic player in the administration of oil and gas reforms, especially in stabilizing the supply and distribution of petroleum products across the country, among others”.