[size=14pt]Nigerian Oil Thieving Troubles Int’l Maritime Bureau[/size]


As the issue of fuel subsidy removal threatens Nigeria’s economy in the new year, the maritime arm of the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has expressed concerns over Nigerian oil theft, as it peaked, warning members over ongoing scams involving the fraudulent sale of the country’s petroleum products.

This comes as the senior special adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on maritime services said fraudulent people get the product from local refineries, but because they want to get the subsidy, they take the product back to sea and transfer into another vessel, bringing the fuel back into the country as an imported PMS.

The Bureau has regularly referred cases where vessels belonging to members are caught in the middle of a dispute.

“Most cases involve small companies based in either Nigeria or Ghana and poor quality documents that IMB analyses quickly proved as fake. The documents purportedly show the ownership of cargoes carried on board certain vessels and the scam centres around these spurious documents being sold on to unwitting buyers, often at a heavy discount or for a hefty advance fee,” the IBM said in the statement, which was posted on its website yesterday.

The IMB recently investigated a case on behalf of a German buyer which involved much better quality documentation, including one apparently confirming that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) had indeed supplied the seller with the goods.

Furthermore, the details of the cargo appeared to match that of a genuine shipment which had taken place.

More detailed checks, however, confirmed that the deal was nothing more than an advance-fee fraud.

http://leadership.ng/nga/articles/12654/2012/01/08/nigerian_oil_thieving_troubles_int%E2%80%99l_maritime_bureau.html

Kobojunkie:

This comes as the senior special adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on maritime services said fraudulent people get the product from local refineries, but because they want to get the subsidy, they take the product back to sea and transfer into another vessel, bringing the fuel back into the country as an imported PMS.

Rather than fight the corruption, the administration chose instead to accelerate fuel subsidy removal.

Let's see what the new batch of promises made by this same administration, will amount to this time.