Ghana, Tema, June 19, Consult CDA – The Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) has been tasked with conducting the requisite investigations into the alleged theft of petroleum condensate from Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) valued at $2.5 million.
Because of this, the General Transport Petroleum Chemical Workers organisation (GTPCWU), the parent union of the Tema Oil Refinery staff, has called for a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the alleged theft of crude condensate worth $2.5 million from the facility.
In an engagement with newsmen in Tema, Mr. Bernard Owusu, National Chairman of the GTPCWU, highlighted the need for a thorough investigation into the circumstances and said they were waiting to hear the results.
It may be noted that Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh, the nation’s energy minister, claimed that in April 2023, petroleum condensate valued at $2.5 million disappeared from the country’s single refinery.
The Minister revealed this in response to pleas from the Union for the government to rebuild the failing refinery so Ghana could derive the essential economic advantages from its operations.
He claimed to have gotten an agreement for TOR as a new business opportunity in the premix fuel market in order to ensure that the refinery would use all of the crude condensate from Ghana Gas to make premix fuel as part of the refurbishment process.
The Minister argued that since he had last heard, more than $2.5 million worth of condensate had disappeared from the refinery.
Meanwhile, Mr. Abraham Koomson, Secretary General of the Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL), has stressed that the absence of political will on the part of previous governments is to blame for the poor situation of TOR.
He emphasised that because governments have not taken decisive action to update the refinery, it continues to deteriorate day in and day out.
He claimed that despite having the best engineers and the ability to refine many barrels per day, the refinery was just delivering finished goods and not performing its fundamental duty of refining oil.
According to the GFL Secretary-General, since Ghana was currently going through financial difficulties and a debt restructuring plan, it was critical to encourage indigenous industries since they would be crucial to the nation’s prosperity.
He stressed that the current system, in which TOR was underutilised but the country exported the product to other countries at considerable expense to refine and bring back into the country, as well as the fact that the refinery was excluded from the Gold for Oil agreement, was unacceptable.
Furthermore, Mr. Koomson claimed in an interview that the continual screams of TOR workers and Organised Labour were very alarming and needed immediate action.
Mr. Koomson issued a warning, noting that because these transactions were in cedis, making TOR fully operational would help reduce the pressure on the Ghana cedi by cutting financing costs.
