By Patson Chilemba
The Ministry of Energy permanent secretary chaired, TAZAMA, awarded a multimillion Dollar contract for the supply of petroleum products to Agro-Fuels, a company whose owner Sashi Patel is said to be ‘close friends’ with Energy minister Peter Kapala, without the board’s approval.
But Kapala argued that the contract was tendered for, but when asked about the board not approving of the award, said he was not into micromanaging to find out whether the board sat to approve the contract.
The TAZAMA Board is chaired by Energy permanent secretary (Technical) Himba Cheelo.
Impeccable sources in the UPND administration, have told Daily Revelation that Agro-Fuels was awarded the contract when the country was transitioning to transporting diesel through the TAZAMA Pipeline, saying the works involved cleaning the pipeline and petroleum products in form of low sulfur diesel.
However, questions are being raised on [pp-logged-users]
how the company was ‘single-sourced’ to carry out the works without the knowledge of the board which should have sat to decide on the matter as per procedure.
“Complaints are also coming through other oil marketing companies like Total and Engine on how the contract ended up in the hands of Patel, given his close links with the minister and without the approval of the board,” one of the sources familiar with the matter told Daily Revelation.
This is one matter, activist Brebner Changala recently commented on, challenging the Anti-Corruption Commission to be transparent by disclosing the investigations against Agro-Fuel, a company that was running Indeni.
“Can the Anti-Corruption Commission deny or confirm whether Agro-Fuel company is being investigated on the $100 million allegations over the transportation of crude oil between TAZAMA and Indeni Pipe Line. We want to know if there are any investigations in that regard,” Changala demanded.
Permanent Secretary (Technical) in the Ministry of Energy Himba Cheelo did not take her calls when reached for comment.
But her minister, Kapala responded.
Asked on information that he was friends with Patel, Kapala argued that he would rather the investigation is done before commenting.
“You see what I mean? Because I am close to all oil marketing companies, so I don’t know how close is close. You see what I mean? If I may put it that way. And you see it was a tender. It was I think four, five companies tendered. They settled for Agro-Fuel to supply the product,” Kapala said. “The cleaning was done by ourselves TAZAMA. So if there is an investigation going on, so let’s just wait for the investigation to be concluded, otherwise we are going to prejudice the outcome.”
Asked on information that there was no board meeting to decide on getting Agro-Fuels over this same contracts, Kapala said: “If I will be doing operational things in TAZAMA, Indeni, Zesco, those are operational issues. For us we provide the guidance, the policy that listen now ‘let’s do this’. I am not going to be asking them ‘oh, did the board approve? Oh, did the board sit? Oh where was the board? Let’s have the minutes.’ That’s micromanaging. We drive the policy. So if there is an investigation we welcome it so that everybody is in the clear.”
“I couldn’t say more because of the investigation. We can come and discuss once the investigation is done. So who is carrying out the investigation?” said Kapala.[/pp-logged-users]
