A communique from the Executive Mansion of Liberia on Monday, 14th September 2020, stated that Liberia Petroleum and Refining Company (LPRC) has a one-week ultimatum to produce a status report on the remittance of petroleum products.
This was issued by President George Weah following an elapsed 90-day remittance period given to that Managing Director of LPRC, Marie Urey Coleman. The first ultimatum was given after a shortage of petroleum products hit the Liberian markets for about four weeks, from February – March 2020, before the rise in COVID-19 cases that led to the lockdown.
The shortage came when the pandemic was already causing havoc to major world economies and suppliers of petroleum products globally. Vehicles and other petroleum product users were said to have formed long queues and struggled to purchase a few gallons of the product. This made the President set up a special task force to investigate the reason for the scarcity of petroleum products in the Liberian market.
The task force was charged with the responsibility of probing what was determined to be a
“variance of 60% between importer’s inventory of products at the LPRC and actual stock at the storage facilities,” and it was headed by the Minister of State Without Portfolio, Trokon Kpui. After the probe was completed, the Special Presidential Taskforce submitted its report to the president on February 21st 2020, and a copy was forwarded to the MD too.
The task force recommended that products among tanks of the LPRC Tank would settle said accounts. Since then, 90 days was given by President Weah to the MD to settle the said outstanding balances either in cash or the equivalent value in products, but the MD is yet to comply with the recommendation and yet to provide a report of the remittance of the said products to the suppliers.
This prompted the President to instruct the Head of the Taskforce to liaise with the management of the LPRC to know the status of the report and deliver it to the Executive Mansion in one-week.
Excerpts from the communique:
“A period of 90 days was given by the President for settlement of the outstanding balances either in cash or in the equivalent value in products.”
“The 90 days period elapsed several months and there does not appear to be any report from you to the office of the president concerning the remit.”
“In view of the foregoing, the President has mandated Minister Kpui in his capacity as chairman of the Taskforce to liaise with you and your management team to determine and catalog the progress you have made to date in compliance with his directive, and to prepare a status report to be delivered to his office within one week of the date of this letter.”
