Monrovia – A new wrangle has surfaced amid lingering questions over what is really responsible for the shortage of gasoline in Liberia.
Last week, Professor Wilson Tarpeh, Minister of Commerce and Industry, laid the blame on the lack of dredging as a primary reason why large vessels have been prevented from berthing at the port for fear of being stuck while attempting to dock.
Also, last week, making an appearance before the Senate, Mr. Bill Twehway, head of the National Port Authority said that despite the issue of dredging, some ships have been berthing and products have been coming to the country.
The NPA MD said the port dredging is five years behind time, indicating that the last time the port was dredged was in 2012. “There is a perception out there that there is a shortage of petroleum on the market because larger vessels called in and they were denied entry because the channel is narrow. Members of the Senate, I want to inform you the dredging of the port should have been done August, last year,” the NPA MD said.
As a result the NPA MD averred, that since October 2019, bigger vessels have stopped berthing at the Freeport of Monrovia because of high degree of siltation.
Now, an investigation by FrontPageAfrica has uncovered that the port was actually dredged in 2017 and not 2012.
FPA has gathered from viewing of port records that the port was dredged in 2017 by Nordsee Dredging International, a subsidiary of Dredging Environment Marine International (DEME Group). Four years earlier, in 2012, another company, Van Oord dredged the port.
In 2017, Nordsee, a Norwegian company, dredged the entrance channel, harbor basin, and the quay side of the FUF(fuel unloading facility).
FPA has learned that the current dredging being done is only for the entrance channel which has been sub-contracted to Van Oord by an unnamed company, FPA has not been able to determine as this report went to press.
The June 2017 dredging, according to documents viewed by FPA, covered a depth of 13.5 meters and in some places, 14.5 meters, in order to accommodate larger and wilder vessels, provide for safe navigation and facilitate trade and commerce.
“I can put my life on the line that dredging is and can’t be the reason”.
– Mr. Malcom Scotte, Director of Public Relations, National Port Authority
The Communications Director at the NPA, Mr. Malcom Scott confirmed to FPA that the port was last dredged in 2017. He said, further dredging exercise delayed to change in management at the NPA.
According to Scott, the frequency of the dredging exercise depends on the buildup of the quantity of siltation that proceeds a pre-dredge survey.
Over the past few weeks, there have been speculations in the public that the failure of the NPA management to dredge the port created the situation where large vessels cannot dock, therefore, making it difficult for large tankers to bring in petroleum products.
This was also confirmed by the Minister of Commerce in an exclusive interview with FrontPageAfrica.
However, Mr. Scott who said the dredging cannot be the reason for the current shortage of petrol told FrontPageAfrica, “I can put my life on the line that dredging is and can’t be the reason”.
According to him, only the relevant authorities at the Liberia Petroleum Refinery Company (LPRC) can explain the shortage of gasoline.
Meanwhile, while the authorities at LPRC continue to maintain that there is no shortage of gasoline, filling stations continue to be overwhelmed and, in many cases, ration the available gasoline.
In some extreme cases, which of course is becoming quite a common practice now, drivers leave their vehicles in queues at filling stations at night so as to be amongst the first to be served the available product in the morning when the stations open.