Energy minister Dr Medard Kalemani
THE government has demanded quarterly business performance reports from the PUMA Energy Tanzania and Tanzania International Petroleum Reserves Limited (TIPER), to enable it verify actual dividend and taxes the companies are supposed to pay.
The two companies, in each of which the
government has 50 per cent shares, were also ordered to submit the
reports from the end of this month onwards. It has also directed the
board of directors of both companies to review the companies’ management
structures, in which high-level positions are held by foreigners.
“I want the board to sit and consider
the balance of power. There should also be Tanzanians in the top posts
for the interest of the nation,” Energy minister Dr Medard Kalemani told
the board chairman.
Minister Kalemani gave the new
directives yesterday when he visited the two facilities, just two weeks
after he was appointed to the post. He said the performance reports
should explain the amount of fuel ordered, received, sold and the profit
obtained in every three months.
“You should submit the report to the
ministry’s permanent secretary from the end of this month… failure of
doing so would invite stern legal action,” Dr Kalemani ordered. He
elaborated that the fresh move intends to change the way the companies
operated, considering that the government is also the majority
shareholder of the companies, and was thus enjoined to monitor their
operations closely.
Though the companies were paying
dividend and taxes to the government annually, the minister was
skeptical that the amount could be less than what they should pay
because they were not sharing their business reports with the government
for verification. Dr Kalemani appealed to the management to ensure that
they consider workers’ well-being for boosting their morale, towards
raising productivity.
At the Puma Energy facility, Dr Kalemani
gave specific directives to the management, including opening centres
in six regions where they didn’t have a presence currently, citing
Songea, Singida and Geita as examples.
“I want you to reach those regions to
extend your presence in order to earn more income, because you might be
complaining over poor revenues while you haven’t covered all regions,”
he noted.
During his visit, he learnt that one of
the oil tank Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) was dormant for a long time,
making Oryx the sole supplier of the gas, a situation which leads to low
supply of the product.
Dr Kalemani ordered that the gas tank
becomes operational as soon as possible to increase the availability of
the product in the market. He revealed that the ministry had established
a special desk to deal with the issues of the Puma Energy Tanzania for
efficiency.
Puma Energy General Manager Philippe
Corsaletti told the minister that the company had started operating for
24 hours, explaining that 49 stations countrywide were functioning.
Mr Corsaletti further noted that the
company’s dividend to the government had been increasing, recording
4bn/- in 2012 and 14bn/- in2016. “But, this is not enough; it was
possible that if our supervision was on a higher scale, the dividend
could even be higher than that.
This year we want it reach 28bn/,” Dr
Kalemani said. At the TIPER, its assistant director, Mr Paulo Mzava,
said the company’s revenues had increased from 6.3bn/- in 2015 to
6.5bn/- last year.
He was optimistic that the revenues
would improve further, after the government implemented its plan of
making it the ‘Single Receiving Facility’ (SRF)’ , under which all
imported oil were routed through the TIPER before distributing it to
various depots.
The SRF is expected to help the
government be aware of the amount of fuel on transit, the amount
retained for country’s use and total taxes collected.
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