Audit Bureau: No Immunity to Anyone Involved in Red Diesel Scandal

The head of the Audit Bureau vowed on Thursday to unveil the truth behind a red diesel scandal that rocked Lebanon last week as he decided to send inspectors to the North after grilling directors general of oil refineries.

“There won’t be immunity and protection to anyone,” Judge Aouni Ramadan told As Safir daily. The Bureau will follow up the red diesel scandal until all the facts become clear, he said.

“The investigation will be completed within ten days,” Ramadan stressed.

The Audit Bureau questioned on Wednesday the directors general of oil refineries in Zahrani in the South and the northern port city of Tripoli.

But Ramadan told the state-run National News Agency that following the interrogation, “it was decided to dispatch (Audit) Bureau inspectors to the Deir Amar refinery in the North to examine some bills and documents.”

The red diesel scandal erupted after reports said that at midnight of January 18, the Tripoli refinery sold to traders 8 million liters of red diesel at the subsidized price, hours before the end of the government deadline for the one-month LL3,000 subsidy.

But the 8 million liters were sold the next day in the market at higher prices, the reports said.

Some fingers have been pointed at Energy Minister Jebran Bassil, who has been accused of giving benefits of around 15 million dollars to the traders in the North for electoral gains.

Ramadan told As Safir, however, that the major focus of the investigation is the role played by distribution companies that have allegedly stored large quantities of red diesel during the one-month government subsidy.

The consumer protection board at the Economy Ministry will also be inquired if an employee made an administrative mistake in not monitoring prices, he said.

Ramadan told NNA that “major oil companies and distribution companies Total and Medco bought large quantities of (red) diesel and stored them, and when the subsidization was lifted the companies started selling them for a high price.”

“For example, the subsidized jerrycan (20 liters) was bought for LL25,000 while its pre-subsidization price was LL30,000. Companies stored them in their warehouses and when the subsidization was lifted and the price of diesel returned to the real price, LL30,000, the companies sold the jerrycan for LL30,000,” he clarified.

Ramadan also noted that “there are no problems in the South over this issue; the problems took place in the North, knowing that the quantity of diesel distributed in the North is four times that distributed in the South.”