A Member of the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament, and Member of Parliament for Dormaa East Paul Apraku Twum Barimah, has commended The Chief Executive Officer of the National Petroleum Authority, NPA, Mustapha Hamid and his management for deploying and operating the Electronic Cargo Tracking System and the Automatic Gauging System that are helping to sanitise the downstream petroleum sector in the country.
He said the application of the technology would ensure that only high standard and quality petroleum products are distributed and sold to consumers as a way of ensuring the sanctity of the petroleum industry.
Industty players have revealed that the Electronic Cargo Tracking System, ERDMS, and the Automatic Tank Gauging System are helping the Authority to calculate and monitor loaded petroleum products while ensuring that they get to the final point without diversions.
The technology also ensures that people do not get the chance to cheat the system.
In a related development, honourable Paul Twum Barimah described the call by the NPA for petroleum importing and marketing companies to distribute and sell petroleum product with only the approved quantity of manganese as a laudable one.
According to him the decision will help get rid of substandard petroleum products out of the fuel market and protect vehicles from breaking down as a result of using diluted fuel as well as drivers from using extra funds from buying spare parts.
It will be recalled that The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) recently initiated steps to review the national standards for gasoline in partnership with the Ghana Standards Authority.
The review is expected to reduce the maximum allowable manganese level in regular gasoline from 18mg/l to 6mg/l and premium gasoline grade from 18mg/l to 2mg/l.
the NPA had directed that all new gasoline imports should comply with the proposed manganese standards of 6mg/l for regular gasoline and 2mg/l for premium gasoline grade.
The directive emerged from the stream of complaints from some petroleum product consumers about the reduced performance of their vehicles which they attribute to fuel that they purchased at some retail stations in Ghana.
The Ghana motor gasoline standard (GS 140:2022) allows for some level of trace metals such as manganese up to 18 milligrams per litre (mg/l).
