Oil marketing company Rubis Energy Kenya has sued a transport company seeking to be paid Sh242 million for the alleged loss of 2.1 million litres of petroleum products.
Rubis Energy accuses A O Said Transporters Ltd of failing to prevent the illegal lifting of physical stocks from the Mombasa joint terminal by its trucks.
In its suit at the High Court in Mombasa, Rubis says that on January 31, 2017, it agreed with the firm to provide transport services to various places.
According to the oil marketer, around November 2018, during an annual independent audit and stock taking at Mombasa joint terminal, which it operates in conjunction with Total Kenya, it discovered there were varying differences between physical stocks and bulk stock reports.
“This necessitated the need to conduct a full review of the stocks reporting for 2018 in order to ascertain the accuracy of the stock movement at the terminal,” argues Rubis.
It further says a joint audit team between Total Kenya and KenolKobil (Rubis) was formed and tasked with coming up with a joint internal audit report.
Rubis says the joint audit report submitted to it indicated that 2.1 million litres of petroleum products were loaded onto trucks but were not recorded in the Petrostock, a dispatch platform software.
The oil marketer says that it further engaged the services of a private investigator to conduct an independent investigation to ascertain the product loss and its (investigator’s) report confirmed the loss of over two million litres of various petroleum products.
Rubis further says that the independent report indicated that the theft was conducted jointly by the staff of Mombasa joint terminal, Kenol Kobil, Total Kenya and truck drivers who falsified stock entries and other documents.
It also says that the report indicated that the theft was perpetrated through the lifting of physical stocks from the Mombasa joint terminal using various suspect trucks which played a huge role in the loss of petroleum products.
“The plaintiffs aver that its employees involved in the scandal have since been terminated and criminal complaints have been initiated by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations against all those involved,” part of the suit documents state.
