AUDIO MAKING ROUNDS ON RIGGED FUEL PUMPS IS FIVE YEARS OLD –COPEC

The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers-Ghana (COPEC) has stated that an audio making the rounds
about rigged fuel pumps at some filling stations, is five years old.
An audio appeared a few days ago on social media that suggests that some filling stations have rigged
their pumps and are dispensing lower than normal to unsuspecting members of the public.
However, COPEC denied the audio yesterday in a press release in Accra dated 4 th September, 2024. It
was signed by Duncan Amoah, Executive Secretary of COPEC.
(Below is the full release).
CLARIFICATION ON A 2019 AUDIO CURRENTLY BEING RECIRCULATED ON SOCIAL MEDIA.
An audio of an interview granted with Asempa 94.7fm some 5 years back, on a matter of the then report,
(2019) published by the Publisher Newspaper pertaining to a Ghana Standards Authority report, citing
some specific pumps of a few OMCs whose observable quantities as dispensed during the routine
inspections were below tolerance levels.
The said audio, which dates back to 2019, has resurfaced on social media, 5 clear years after the said
matter has been decisively dealt with.
For purposes of clarification, COPEC, as a civil society platform and a consumer mouthpiece, in the
interest of the affected consumers, reached out to all the mentioned OMCs to ensure whatever anomalies
as had been then observed were speedily rectified.
The mentioned outlets and their OMCs indeed agreed to open up for visual inspection and subsequent
compensation by way of free fuel to affected customers of the said stations.
Officials of the said OMCs together with Copec in the company of the media and some Ghana Standards
Authority Officials, went out to each of the affected pumps to verify the rectification to which, I can confirm
that all the earlier mentioned pumps had effected corrective measures including changing of those
malfunctioning pumps as some of the challenges leading to the said under deliveries could be attributable
to mechanical and sometimes human errors.
Following from this exercise, the Ghana Standards Authority also had to put in place an even more
stringent testing routine to ensure misreadings and under deliveries were done away with, this has made
the GSA to now carry out multiple testing of deliveries per year as opposed to the earlier once a year
inspections routine.
We have carefully followed all subsequent testings done to ensure that the industry, as at present, is
almost 99% compliant.
This accounts for the drastic reduction in consumer complaints on under deliveries over the past few
years.
We entreat the public to disregard any apparent mischief that the said audio being circulated currently
intends to create on a somewhat improved industry.