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Nigeria fuel regulator suspends Swiss oil firm
Nimex said it had sent the PPPRA copies of documents, rather than originals as requested, because the Nigerian banking system was holding the original papers as credit until the subsidy payment was received.
“The originals are in the banking channel,” Nimex’s general manager Oliver Hess told Reuters, adding the bank would hold the documents until the regulator had paid out the sum due for the shipments.
But the bank would not release the original documents until the regulator had paid the subsidy, Hess said, creating a situation in which the oil firm was going around in circles to obtain the missing documentation requested.
Two Nimex employees were travelling to Nigeria’s capital Abuja with most of the original document requested, Hess said, adding the firm hoped to resolve the dispute by Friday.
The investigation disclosed that 18 firms never produced the documents required to prove the subsidy funds received from the government tallied with the amount of fuel they had imported.
