By Francis Ntow
Accra, May 29, GNA – Senyo Hosi, the Founder and Chairman of HFields, says the company has no plans to engage the government on providing any revenue assurance services in Ghana’s downstream petroleum sector.
Rather, through its digital StockTrack system, the company intends to provide an end-to-end stock monitoring and risk management service, which would transform existing manual processes into automated ones.
That, Mr Hosi said this was to safeguard the supply assurance and transparency among sector players, and help the sector regulator, National Petroleum Authority (NPA) achieve its mandate of ensuring regular supply of petroleum products.
The value chain players include NPA, financiers, International Oil Traders (IOTs), Bulk Oil Importer Distribution and Export Companies (BIDECS), Refineries and local Petroleum Service Providers (PSPs).
The company has sent a proposal to NPA, awaiting all due processes to be completed, including Parliamentary approval, where necessary, before a contract would be signed, he said.
He said this during a media engagement in Accra on Monday, May 28, on the back of some media reports that the company would be engaging in revenue assurance services.
Mr Hosi explained that the StockTrack system would provide timely digitised data to all related sector players, help with inventory visibility, and authenticate processes, while reducing the funding risk in the sector.
“The system we have developed has nothing to do with revenue assurance… it’s mainly designed for stock-risk management and supply assurance. It is not a duplication of any system in the world,” he said.
“It ensures transparency throughout the entire supply chain processes in the downstream sector, every player in the downstream sector can see and track in real-time everything that is going on because the system captures all movements of the cargoes that come into the country,” he added.
Mr Hosi also stated that the system would provide NPA with pre-emptive capabilities to risk-manage fuel supply security vulnerabilities, have full visibility of happenings in the sector, and ensure petroleum supply sustainability.
For BIDECS, he said the system would make them have increased access to credit, clear accountability on laycan defaults, and be able to ringfence legacy transactions to facilitate trade.
“The IoTs have been trying to reduce their risk because they do not have control. Giving them control will enable stay in a more efficient manner. IoTs are funding the sector, so anybody funding the sector will find this a lot more functional for their credit risk management,” he said.
While admitting that the software could be the target of hackers, Mr Viraj Bhat, Chief Technology Officer of HFields, said the technology had been built to meet ISO 27001 standards.
It, therefore, has encryptions, two-factor authentications, blockchain integration capabilities, and redundancy systems, and would be subjected to a quarterly vulnerability assessment to its operational effectiveness and efficiency.
GNA