EMEA News
Tanzania Investigates Financial Losses After Flow Meter Shutdown
Tanzanian officials are investigating financial losses after the Tanzanian Port Authority (TPA) stopped the use of of fuel flow-meters at the Dar Es Salaam Port in February 2011, Tanzanian newspaper The Citizen reports.
The country's Weights and Measures Agency (WMA) said it had ordered the flow-meter shutdown because of operational problems, resulting in complaints by oil companies.
The government installed the meters in 2004 to determine the volume of oil entering the country as a way to curb tax evasion, and the tax revenue from oil rose by Sh16.5 billion ($10.2 million) the following year.
After a government auditor's report last year blamed the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) for the revenue loss, authorities called for the WMA to provide calculations of how much money the government may have lost, but so far they have failed to do so.
"We discovered a lot of problems with the flow meters system; we therefore ordered the port to stop using the system until we make some changes," said WMA CEO Magdalena Chuwa.
Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (Pac) chairperson, Zitto Kabwe, said TRA, TPA, and WMA would now all be investigated.
"The authorities have failed to provide satisfactory answers," he said.
As early as 2005, the flow meters were reported to be malfunctioning, contributing to rising fuel prices at the port as overhead costs were passed on to customers, Africa News Services reported at the time.
