The Public Prosecutor / Attorney General’s Office announced last Sunday that two officials, one at the National Oil Corporation and the other at Brega Oil Marketing Company, were convicted over the substandard fuel fiasco of 2022.
It will be recalled that in 2022 drivers started complaining of failures of their car engines which was put to substandard fuel clogging up the fuel pumps/fuel jets. Rumours started to circulate that the NOC/Brega had imported ‘’cheap fuel’’.
As a result of public outcry, the Public Prosecutor’s Office announced it would be investigating the matter.
On Sunday, it reported that the investigation revealed abuse of the powers of the job assigned to the official of the General Department of International Marketing; Director of the Supply Department at the National Oil Corporation; Director of the General Administration of Supply and Maritime Transport at Brega Oil Marketing Company.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office said they had deliberately refrained from contracting with producing companies. They received quantities of fuel that do not comply with the Libyan standard. They had also relied on immediate supply contracts that do not guarantee the maintenance of the public interest. Their behaviour had caused harm to public money linked to incidents of damage to citizens’ engines of their motorized vehicles.
As a result, the official of the General Department of International Marketing at the National Oil Corporation and the Director of the General Administration of Supply and Maritime Transport at Brega Oil Marketing Company were sentenced to imprisonment for thirty months.
They were also fined LD 10,000 ten and obliged to return LD 147,524,630 (LD 1.46 million).
The Director of the NOC Supply Department at the National Oil Corporation was acquitted of all charges.
