One of the most fundamental problem with this new MD isthe issue of Procurement of Crude Oil (the black fuel) needed to keep the engines running continuously. The guy is now having a third procurement Manager, with the departure of the first two. Mr Janneh, a NAWEC retiree, was there before Mr Robinson came, who he has since elbowed out of the company and was quickly replaced by Jainaba Faal, a full-time staff of the Ministry of Finance. She was working on “part” time basis but was paid even more than a full-time Director and has other benefits such as fuel coupons, Cash Power tokens etc. Now Miss Faal has since “left” and has being replaced by an old Grandfather, a retiree called Mr Jobe, who was handpicked by Miss Faal. An advertisement for the Vacant Post of a Procurement Manager was done. More than fifteen young Gambians has already applied and waiting to be shortlisted for interview. Word just got in that Jainaba Faal reviewed the applications and concluded that none of the applicants is qualified enough for the job and he advise the MD Robinson to the facts or mis-facts I should say.Very ridiculous, isn’t it?

My guess is that because of the dubious nature of AlphaRobinson, which he is manifesting everyday by his actions, he is looking for somebody who will do his bidding as far as getting kickbacks on NAWEC procurement is concerned. Recently all Major Procurement especially fuel and Lubricants is now going to Mr Edi Mass Jobe, either directly through his companies E M Holding and Atlas or using proxies. We all know that the MD is a friend and a school mate of Mr Edi Jobe, and it is been said in some quarters that he is being lodge by Edi in one of his (Edi’s) properties.

My first memo to you will be about the crude oil supply saga, in which a valid Contract was violated and abandoned by the new MD, and an unknown supplier was engaged without following due process and that the prices are over inflated. An unnecessary and an unwarranted consumption of huge amount of gasoil was consumed by the engines, resulting in huge financials loses to NAWEC in the last few weeks under this new MD.

As you may be aware NAWEC already has an existing crudeoil Supply Contract with Castle Oil owned by Hasib Masry, a well know fuel hustler in Town. Castle was Contracted sometime in 2018 or 2019 to supply 100,000MT of the crude oil under a financing Arrangement with ITFC, an autonomous entity within the Islamic Development Bank. The Contract was won under an International Competitive Bidding for which Castle emerged as the most responsive Bidder and had the lowest Price. Castle has already supplied about 80,000MT under this Contract and was in the process of supplying the remaining amount, for which they already have some stock stored at the Fuel Depot at Mandinary

Then enter Alpha Robinson as the Managing Director of NAWEC following his appointment sometime in July 2019. Now this contract with Castle Oil has being thrown out of the window with several violations of the terms of the Contract by NAWEC under the instructions of the new MD and in the process frustrated Castle. The necessary guarantees were notprovided even though a local Bank has agreed in principle to provide the guarantees. Besides, outstanding payments owed to Castle for crude oil already supplied and consumed were not paid.

Now with Castle out of the way, Mr Robinson took over the responsibility of the procurement of the crude oil and arranged for the supply of the fuel from an unknown company. There was no tender, no certificate of quality etc in flagrant violation of NAWEC internal processes and the procurement guidelines of the Gambia Public Procurement Act (GPPA). You may note that close to Two Hundred MillionDalasi worth of fuel was supplied by this unknown companywithout a Contract or even a Purchase Order.

The price for a Metric Ton (MT) of the crude oil charged by the Company to NAWEC was way more than the price under the Contract with Castle. The last invoice received by NAWEC from Castle was just over US $400 per Metric Ton. Now NAWEC was invoiced over US $ 550/MT by this company. A fuel Supply of just less than 4,000MT, as claimed by the supplier, was involved in this consignment. So if you do the math you will realised that NAWEC will pay this unknown company at least Two (2) Million US Dollar or there about, which translates to GMD 102, 000,000.00, yes ahundred and Two Million Dalasi, as oppose to the US $ 1.6Million (equivalent to GMD 81,600,000.00) NAWEC would have paid to Castle under the Contract, and because of the payment Guarantee, NAWEC would have had a breathing space of at least 60 – 90 days to effect the payment. The lost to NAWEC in this transaction alone is more than twenty Million Dalasi.

A serious Board of Directors and/or Government would have instituted an investigation on this forthwith, but the new NAWEC Board is still struggling to find its feet and I understand that Mr Robinson is in the habit of confusing them with his “Chinglish” in board meetings and technical Jargons, he himself does not understand as he too is not conversant with the energy business.

The most distressing of all the issues surrounding this fuel arrangement by the MD, was that the supplier quickly ran out of crude oil and some desperate means must be found to supply this fuel to NAWEC. Then came the issue of supplying a crude oil of a different grade to NAWEC. But in order to avoid mixing the two fuels and avoid compatibility issues of the crude oil supplies, a transition must be done to accept the “new” fuel. This transition involves emptying and cleaning the Storage tanks off the Old crude oil, flushing the fuel lines, whilst using gasoil to run the Engines, because the supply of electricity cannot stop. So, in this transition from one fuel to another, close to a Million and Two Hundred Thousand litres of gasoil was procured, of course from ATLAS. At an average price of GMD 35.00/ltr the cost of the gasoil procuredamounts to GMD 42,000,000.00. The NAWEC Finance Director is still struggling to pay this money. The worst part is that the MD is even bold enough to instruct the Finance Director to conclude the payment without the complete documentation necessary to fulfil the payment.

Now once the storage tanks were cleaned, the different grade of fuel was supplied at an even more ridiculously expensive price of over US $ 570.00/MT. A quantity of 2,000MT of this grade of fuel was claimed to have been supplied and the monies again involved here is at least US $ 1,140,000.00 equivalent to GMD 58,140,000.00.

This fuel also quickly ran out and NAWEC was forced to operate on gasoil again pending the availability of crude oil. After some few weeks of running the Engines on gasoil,consuming over 1,000,000 litres and accruing a debt of more than GMD 35,000,000.00, of course to Atlas, the old grade of fuel, that was hitherto the same fuel been supplied by Castleunder the Contract, was made available by this unknown fuel supplier. And this means another fuel transition episode. Again over 700,000 litres of gasoil was consumed in this second transition episode amounting to more than GMD 24,500,000.00.

If you factor the difference of cost between the crude oil, that would have been consumed and the cost of the gasoilconsumed during the change of fuel supplier, you will see that the funds unnecessarily wasted in the past few weeks is enormous and NAWEC will struggle to pay these amounts for the next few months. Also, because the prices at which NAWEC buys fuel is tax free, you can imagine the loss of revenue to GRA if this gasoil, amounting to almost three million litres, were to be sold by Atlas at the pumped price of about GMD 55.00/ltr.

Now NAWEC is back to square one and using the same grade of crude oil been supplied by Castle under the contract. Is this a prudent way to manage a cash strapped company, like NAWEC? A sensible and reasonable Managing Director would have allowed the Castle Contract to expire before engaging a new fuel supplier and avoid all this unnecessary waste of funds. He would have had an adequate time to work on a change of supplier and could have done it in a more professional way. I wonder if the Board is aware of these arrangements by the MD. NAWEC has had several MD’s in the last two decades and each of these MD’s has found a crude oil Supply Contract in place when they assume office, were able to manage the transition from one fuel supplier to another, without this kind of unnecessary wastage of NAWEC’s resources to change a fuel supplier, as had happened under MD Robinson. You should also note that some of the engines have to be shutdown at some point where fuel is not available during the period, resulting in power outages of several hours, which NAWEC either keep quietabout or misled the public and attribute the power outages to maintenances of engines.

This unknow supplier is supplying crude oil to NAWEC without any Contract whatsoever and was engaged without any tender nor adherence to the GPPA guidelines, but hey Alpha Robinson is not even aware of this act and being a very pretentious guy, I can already predict his reaction if confronted with violations of the Act. What I can also say apart from the violations of the Act is that fuel supply arrangement by the MD, was very poor, with the fuel sometimes getting to the power stations in the middle of the night. The logistical arrangement was to say least, less than satisfactory.

The quantities or monies that I have mentioned above is easily variable unless somebody somewhere wants to hide the facts. You can check first with the Finance Department for the amounts so far paid (a huge amount is still outstanding for payment though), then with the Procurement Department for the quantities of fuel (both gasoil and crude oil) requested and processed, and with the Power Stations in the Greater Banjul Area, Farafenni and Basse for the quantities received. The suppliers if they will corporate can give some substantial information, on the quantities they have supplied and the monies they have being paid so far. The fuel Depot at Mandinary can also provide very useful information.

Alpha Robinson may have been a good student in High School as we all know, but I believe he cannot even manage a Poultry Farm, talk less of managing a very complicated company like NAWEC with all the interest groups, difficult to satisfy customers, a disgruntled staff, very hungrybusinessmen and other vultures hovering around. He does not have the pedigree, the management capacity and public sector experience to run a corporate entity like NAWEC. I wonder what jobs he was doing all these years prior to his return as the MD.

This is just the fuel cost issue. I have not even talked about the quality issues with regards to the crude oil, which may have some long-term impact on the engines. I have also not talked about the procurement of Lubricants or how the MD is giving payment instructions to the Banks with a mere text message or using a mobile APP, his divisive and disorderly management style, the Waa Banjul effect etc.

I understand this guy is held in very high esteem by the folks at Statehouse especially the President, courtesy of his high school performance more than thirty-five years ago, the public relation efforts being done by certain individuals to promote the ego of the MD at the presidency, couple with the fabrications he is making at Board Meetings and the highest echelons of the Government. The presidency felt that some staff (the opposition) at NAWEC are trying to sabotage the guy, but this is not really the case, I can tell you. If he stays any longer as the MD of NAWEC, the company will soon be engrossed in so much debts and will be dead and buried despite the great efforts that was done by the World Bank for the government to take over the earlier debts accumulated by NAWEC.

Lastly, I understand that Castle has again won the latest tender for the new ITFC loan facility to supply 100,000MT of Crude Oil come next year despite all efforts by MD Robinson and his cronies attempts to remove them (Castle) from the tender process. But Mr Robinson being so “degerr fit” is still sitting on the report. I wonder what he will do next.

Yours Sincerely

Talibeh
Editors note:  The views expressed in this piece by the author, do not represent the position of the Freedom Newspaper.   Thanks for your kind attention.