10 March 2010

Timor Government chooses more expensive fuel while public loses US$810,000.00.

Tempo Semanal Friday, 5 March 2010 - In the middle of the month of May 2009 the Fourth Constitutional Government was forced to terminate the fuel supply contract to the EDTL by the company Pualaka Petroleu after there was a clash between the three directors.

When the contract with the Company Sunshine ended, the government opened a public tender through its central procurement, which a number of companies competed for in the month of November 2009, and the company Sunshine continued to supply fuel to EDTL.

This tender process took some time, up to the time when the government announced to the public that the company ETO had won the tender. The other companies lodged protests and allegations of Collusion, Corruption and Nepotism emerged as well as concerns of a monopoly being created because the director of ETO is the nephew of the Prime Minister Xanana and he had also been awarded other project tenders by the government at the time.  As a result the government was forced to freeze the tender until now.

Consequently the government extended the contract with the company Sunshine up to 31/01/2010.  For the month of February until now into March it is still the company Sunshine that is supplying fuel to EDTL and the result of the tender is still not known.  As a result the total time duration in which Sunshine has been has now been supplying fuel to EDTL has been nine months with an original six-month contract that was merely extended from the end of December until the end of February.

FRETILIN MP Arsenio Paixao Bano from FRETILIN loudly questioned this contract extension through a telephone interview alleging that, “when a contract is amended but despite the price of fuel falling, they still continue with a higher price then this is theft of public moneys.”

According to invoices from Sunshine Petrol group number 53/SPG/P.O/RDTL dated December 2009 the company Sunshine supplied EDTL with fuel valued at US$00.953 whilst other importing companies like Pertamina sold fuel at between US$00.79 – US$00.80 and Atauro Oil sold fuel at US$00.78 per liter.

A comparison of the price between sunshine and Pertamina results in a difference of US$00.15 (fifteen US cents) and compared with Atauro Oil’s price that shows that the public loses US$00.17 (seventeen US cents) per liter. Read more on Tempo Semanal...

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