Georgetown: Three Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) staff are being investigated after $1.5M worth of fuel marker ended up in the hands of an stranger.
The $1.5M in fuel markers is a weekly supply given to this section of GEA staff to execute their duties and investigations in tagging fuel entering Guyana for which taxes have been paid.
Reports indicate that over the years one of the same staff being investigated was also accused previously of stealing the fuel markers.
Prior to 2003 Guyana was facing a large number of fuel smuggling and associated tax losses. Non-taxed fuel was being smuggled into the country and sold illegally to retail sites while taxed road fuels were being adulterated with low-tax kerosene. With no means of identifying which fuels were legally imported and which were smuggled, and recognizing the ruinous effect of fuel smuggling on legitimate businesses, the Government of Guyana implemented the ‘Fuel Marking Programme’ in 2003.
With the technology being new to Guyana and the region at the time of its introduction, there was need for specialised legislation. The Guyana Energy Agency Act 1997 was therefore amended in 2004 to provide specifically for licensing of the different classes of fuel dealers and for the marking of all legitimately imported fuel. Subsidiary legislation in the form of the Petroleum and Petroleum Products Regulations 2004 was also created to regularize fuel operations. The Act was further amended in 2005, and again in 2011, after a review of the system revealed deficiencies.
The Fuel Marking Programme was charged with the responsibility of ensuring that all gasoline, diesel and kerosene were properly ‘marked’ at a known concentration at all legitimate import points and also collecting and testing samples of fuel from various parts of the country including wholesalers, retailers, distributors, transporters, commercial consumers and any person in possession of fuel for the relevant marker(s).
The marking process involves adding a mixture of marker chemicals in liquid form to legally imported fuel before it is released for use or sale. At the time of its implementation, this was done manually. However, the Fuel Marking Programme was bolstered in 2010 with the addition of a mechanised system to add the chemical marker into the ‘bulk storage tanks’. This bulk marking system utilizes self-powered injectors to automatically inject the chemical marker concentrate during discharge of fuel from the international vessels into the bulk storage tanks.
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