The Founding President of think tank IMANI, Franklin Cudjoe, has described the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) as a needless entity exhausting the country’s resources without any value in return.

BOST has been accused of selling five million litres of contaminated fuel to a private firm for distribution to the pumps, a development which many fear will damage engines of vehicles and other equipment that operate on fuel.

The Minority has subsequently demanded the “immediate withdrawal of the contaminated product from the market to protect consumers and assurances that this will not recur”.

The Minority also said the money lost by the state due to the saga, which it estimated at GHS14.25million, must be retrieved by “surcharging the offending officials at BOST in line with a recent Supreme Court decision”.

Commenting on the issue, Mr Cudjoe said: “I am not surprised at all about fuel fraud allegations involving BOST.

“BOST has been a draconian drain on the fortunes of government for several years and the new government must not allow it to be hoodwinked into believing BOST can ever return any real value addition. It is a behemoth that is not needed actually,” he added.

Mr Cudjoe said while IMANI has extensively researched the issue of fuel fraud across Africa and found willing state actors collaborating with non-state traders, the resolution has always been about the use of technology for fuel marking “but persistent crookish tendencies have always upstaged critical and forward-looking solutions”.

Mr Cudjoe pointed out on Wednesday, June 28 that the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) did a thorough job “exposing this canker and it is the greatest indication yet of the needlessness of BOST and the amazing deception of its true economic value to the state”.

“IMANI is reinforcing ACEP's points to discredit the ridiculous argument that if there was a market for off-spec oil in the machine firing space as BOST claims, then the way forward should have been to sell the fuel to a favoured off taker as opposed to auctioning it,” he concluded.