The umbrella body of oil and gas sector workers in the Republic of Ghana has called on the government to disregard calls for the suspension of the three-member Interim Management Committee (IMC) currently in place at the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR).
According to Bernard Owusu, chairman of the General Transport Petroleum and Chemical Workers Union (GTPCWU), the IMC should be allowed to do its work and come out with its full report.
He described the calls for the suspension of the IMC as wrong and inappropriate.
It would be recalled that the three-member Interim Management Committee, chaired by Ing. Nobert Cormla-Djamposu Aku, was constituted by the country’s Energy Minister, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, to undertake technical and human resource audits as well as receiving and assessing viable partnerships for TOR.
This followed the dismissal of the Managing Director of TOR, Mr Francis Boateng, and his Deputy, Mr Ato Morrison, in June this year.
Energynewsafrica.com reported last Tuesday, October 6, 2021, that the ICM had interdicted fourteen top executives of the premier refinery for their roles which had caused financial losses to the company.
The IMC discovered that 18 drums of electrical cables worth and GHS10.4 million had disappeared from its Technical Storehouse, as well as the disappearance of 105, 927 litres of gas oil, which belonged to a BDC.
It also detected the disappearance of an LPG product belonging to a client between 2012 and 2015, as a result of which TOR was indebted to the client to the tune of USD4.8 million, as confirmed by an Ernst and Young audit.
It further detected the wrongful loading of 252,000 litres of Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK) instead of regular kerosene into BRV trucks at the loading gantry between 21st and 25th September 2021.
This development seemed to have ruffled feathers within the refinery and external beneficiaries of the alleged rot with calls on the government to suspend the IMC.
But speaking to energynewsafrica.com, Bernard Owusu said: “I find it weird for somebody to say that the IMC should be dissolved. Why are the products of only the BDCs disappearing? When BDCs were not using TOR storage tanks, there were no product losses,” he noted.
Mr Bernard believed the IMCs findings have exposed the cabal at TOR, who have been engaging in dubious practices and milking the refinery.
To him, the oil and gas business is full of cabals, saying “Maybe, the IMC is stepping on the toes of the cabal,” adding that “some of them are playing the game of their paymasters.”
Mr Owusu, who said one of the indicted workers is a member of the Union, said the Union is in solidarity with the indicted workers but said the Union does not condone wrongdoing.
He, therefore, urged all the union members to back the IMC.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com