Author: Márcio Rodrigues

Source: Folha de S. Paulo, 17/05/2007

The rate of fuels that do not comply with ANP (National Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels Agency) specifications is 6,8% in the State of São Paulo. The value is double the national average of 3,4%. This information was supplied by the coordinator of the ANP regional office in São Paulo, Alcides Santos.

To expand inspections and also reduce this percentage, the city of São Paulo, the ANP and the State Civil Police signed an agreement this Thursday to combat fuel adulteration in the city, in addition to tax evasion and other irregularities at service stations. .

Santos believes that this index can be reduced with this operation and recalls that the percentage of non-compliant fuels in the State has already reached 12%.

The idea of ​​the agreement is to increase the frequency of inspections at gas stations. “The ideal would be for each post to be inspected every three or four months,” said mayor Gilberto Kassab.

According to the Housing Secretary of São Paulo, Orlando Pereira, the agreement provides for the creation of a working group that will include 10 engineers from Contru (Department for Controlling the Use of Real Estate) and eight auditors from the ANP.

The police, in turn, will contribute with the investigative work to identify the fraudsters and pass on the information to the agency and to Contru for inspection of the posts.

According to the inspection superintendent of the ANP, Jefferson Paranhos, the work of the police will be investigative. “They will tell us who the big fraudsters are. The goal is to get to where fraud occurs and stop the problem at the source,” he explained.

In addition, the group intends to set up a website so that the consumer has access to the actions that were carried out, as well as the measures taken against each service station that pointed out some type of irregularity. Kassab did not know, however, to specify the date on which the site would be available to the public.

According to Kassab, there will be a new meeting next week, together with the Public Ministry. The mayor wants to include the body within this inspection group.

Pereira stated that Contru's engineers will receive practical training, probably as early as next week. “We want to take action from June onwards to inspect the XNUMX service stations in the city of São Paulo,” he said.

According to ANP data, in 2007 the agency carried out 2.098 inspection actions in the State of São Paulo. These actions generated 688 infraction notices, 252 of which related to fuel quality. In addition, there were 163 bans.