The Vice President, Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh has revealed the government plans to create another $50 million foreign exchange facility that will be made available to Commercial Banks for whosoever has Leones doing business in essential goods like rice, flour, oil, etc. He recalled in 2020 when the government created a $50 million commodity facility as a stabilization measure to loan business people that are trading on rice and other essential commodities to keep the stock level high and stabilize prices. “We have done this twice and we are hoping to do the third”, he said and added that the government had provided a $10 million facility for agriculture. “These are done at an interest rate of five to six percent,” he remarked.
In petroleum products alone, the Vice President said from 1st March to date a total of $22.5 million has been made available to oil marketing companies to help them buy fuel products. “These are measures taken by the government to address challenges on trading on essential commodities. The government is committed to giving the much-needed foreign exchange to enable Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) to import fuel. The government will continue to reduce taxes on fuel products so that it does not reflect on the suffering of the average people,” he said.
Speaking after a recent meeting with Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs), the
The Vice President said they succeeded in taking stock stabilization measures, including what the government is doing to support Oil Marketing Companies to continue importing fuel products.
Three critical issues came up at the meeting, firstly, what should be done to support OMCs to be able to import fuel products so that the products are always available on the market, secondly, to identify the kind of support to give OMCs, particularly foreign exchange as the exchange rate at the international stage is realizing some changes, and thirdly, identify measures to support those in the supply chain, the dealers and transporters, to ensure that they play their own roles.
On product availability, VP Juldeh Jalloh remarked that the two major local Oil Marketing Companies, Leonoil, and NP are getting their products from Oryx Energies which is based in Switzerland, and supplies, stores and distributes oil and gas products needed by consumers, businesses and maritime operations across sub-Saharan Africa. The said company is also getting its products from the European Market, including Russia where it gets diesel products.
Due to the war in Ukraine, the company had a limited stock of diesel that was placed on direct sales to the market, thereby posing a challenge to the two major oil importers in Sierra Leone to purchase the commodity directly as a result of limited foreign currencies to do their transactions.
The Government, according to the Vice President decided to cushion the burden by providing additional foreign exchange to enable the two companies to buy enough products directly from the Swiss company.
“Last week, about ten thousand metric tons of fuel products arrived in the country, which was sold to the public, an additional six thousand metric tons of diesel arrived over the weekend, which NP has supplied the market. In the next couple of days, NP will get another five thousand five hundred metric tons of diesel and in the next week or two an additional ten thousand metric tons of fuel products will enter the country,” Dr. Jalloh said and added that in the next ten to twelve days the challenges to access fuel supply will be a thing of the past because Conex Oil & Gas Sierra Leone, formerly Total Sierra Leone Limited, is working side by side with the two local oil importers.
Conex had eight thousand metric tons of fuel two weeks ago and is expecting an additional seven thousand metric tons in the coming days.
In addition, the Vice President said there is also a new player in the market, All Petroleum Products Limited (APP), which has brought one thousand metric tons of diesel that will serve as a test distribution in their new jetty and new storage facility. “When once their systems are thoroughly working we would have diversified more services to the market because APP has sixty thousand metrics tons storage capacity, which will help address the challenges in the petroleum industry.” “We have positioned ourselves to address fuel supply challenges in the local market,” he said and added that they are doing their best to do product availability and to subsidize the products.
The government, he said has increased the margin for local marketing and transporting companies from Le220 to Le250. “We expect that the transporters are in a better position to now buy fuel to supply various stations across the country,” he said.
“Our government has been subsidizing fuel products between January and March alone to the tune of Le110 billion just to keep the price low. Sierra Leone is not doing exceptionally bad in the Sub-Region and the country has the lowest cost as a result of government’s intervention,” the Vice President remarked and assured that when the entire above systems are put together the problem of fuel shortage will be a thing of the past.
