The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, (GNPC) was nearly closed down by ex- Ghanaian President John Agyekum Kufuor over the poor state of the corporation, a former Chief Executive Officer of the corporation has told energynewsafrica.com.
Dr. Amos Ofori Quaah, the CEO of the Corporation between 2001 and 2002 during the Kufuor administration, told energynewsafrica.com in an exclusive interview that when the New Patriotic Party (NPP), led by John Agyekum Kufuor, won power from the NDC administration in 2001, the corporation was in a sordid state.
He said at that time, the corporation had strayed from its core mandate and ventured into non-core business which was not yielding any positive returns.
Besides the wasteful venture the corporation had ventured into, Dr Ofori Quaah revealed that the corporation was overstaffed with a workforce of about 972 people.
Touching on how he stopped the former Ghanaian leader from closing down GNPC, Dr Amos Ofori Quaah said upon hearing the intention of the government, he discussed it with a friend who later introduced him to Mr Kan Dapaah, the then Minister designate for Energy.
“So I met the Minister and told him that we were close to finding oil so we cannot close down the corporation,” Dr Ofori Quaah told this portal, adding that “what I agreed to do to save the corporation was cutting down the workforce drastically.”
He said he took the unpleasant decision by cutting down the workforce from 972 to about 70 and refocused the Corporation to its core mandate of finding oil for the country.
Dr Quaah, who started his job with the Corporation in 1985, said he restructured the organisation including setting up the exploration and production department which worked tirelessly leading to Ghana finding oil in commercial quantities in 2007.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com