Source: Official Portal of the State of Bahia, 08/04/2009

Bahia will further improve the quality of the fuel sold in the state. The improvement will be the result of the agreement signed on Wednesday (8) between the State Government, through the Secretariat of Finance (Sefaz), and the National Petroleum Agency (ANP) for the inspection of fuel quality and transportation. Bahia already has a fuel quality non-conformity index below the national average.

The agreement signed in the Hall of Acts of the Governance, in the Administrative Center, is valid for 24 months and provides for training and qualification of the employees involved, verification of the registration status, origin, destination and identification of the products transported, collection of samples of automotive fuels for ANP compliance analysis and inspection of bookkeeping of Fuel and Product Movement Books and fiscal / tax compliance.

For Governor Jaques Wagner, the bigger the market economy, the stronger the regulatory State must be. “It is a triple benefit: we are guaranteeing the quality of the fuel, whatever it may be, for the Bahian consumer; we will give equal opportunities, if someone withholds tax, unfair competition and harms taxpayers; and we will have an eventual increase in revenue in this time of crisis ”, argued Wagner.

Finance Secretary Carlos Martins highlighted the importance of integrated action between Sefaz, the Public Security Secretariat, the Public Ministry, the State Attorney General's Office (PGE), the Court of Justice (TJ) and the ANP. “We, at Sefaz, alone, cannot act. We need the cooperation of agencies and companies to combat tax evasion, ”he declared.

Successful operations

Martins recalled that, in 2008, joint operations were carried out between all these bodies. The Tanque Cheio, Total Quality and Olho Vivo operations aimed, respectively, at verifying whether the purchase of fuels was being made with electronic invoices, assessing the conformity of alcohol and gasoline sold in the cities of Ilhéus and Itabuna and checking the quality of the fuels sold in Salvador. The Na Trilha do Álcool operation, in turn, also had the cooperation of the states of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo.

According to the general director of ANP, Haroldo Lima, the rate of gasoline non-compliance today, in Bahia, is lower than the rate of national non-compliance. “However, as it is a very large state, there are regions where there are very high rates. It is necessary to identify these regions and intensify the inspection ”, he observed.

As for alcohol, Lima cited important regions, such as Itabuna, Ilhéus, Valença, Guanambi and Brumado, which have adulteration rates above twice the national average. “The agreement is related to the fight against tax evasion. This struggle is of greater importance in this moment of crisis, especially in the state of Bahia, which is in need of immediate reinforcement to continue its development path, ”he said.

Haroldo Lima explained that the evasion is made from the adulteration of the product. “This, done in an ingenious and dynamic way, is a mechanism that requires the presence of inspection to be very demanding. When the news goes that the inspection is less, the situation gets much worse ”, he argued.

For the president of Bahiagás, Davidson Magalhães, the company will be extremely favored by the agreement, especially the stations that distribute natural gas. The more intense inspection, with the expanded powers, will allow the regularization of this market and the greater consumption of natural gas.