Tema-Ghana, May 3, CDA consult – The Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL) has disclosed that the deteriorating situation at Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) is the result of previous governments’ lack of political will.
According to Organised Labour, various governments have failed to take strong measures to restore the refinery, which is deteriorating day by day.
Mr. Abraham Koomson, Secretary General of the Ghana Federation of Labour, indicated during an address to the Ghana News Agency Industrial News Hub Platform that the persistent screams of TOR employees and Organised Labour were extremely alarming and needed to be addressed promptly.
He went on to say that it was concerning that the refinery, which had the best engineers and the capacity to refine thousands of barrels of oil per day, was simply transporting finished goods rather than performing its primary function of refining oil.
According to the GFL Secretary-General, Ghana is now in financial trouble and is undergoing debt restructuring, emphasising the significance of boosting indigenous industry as a crucial component in the nation’s development.
He stressed that the current system, in which TOR was underutilised while the government sold the product to foreign nations at a great cost to refine and bring back into the country, was unacceptable, as was the failure to include the refinery in the Gold for Oil agreement.
Because these transactions were denominated in cedis, Mr. Koomson warned that restoring TOR to full capacity would help relieve pressure on the Ghana Cedi by lowering finance expenses.
Meanwhile, due to management intervention, TOR workers’ planned picketing from Tuesday, May 2, to Friday, May 5, 2023, at six public places in Tema to support their calls on the government to revamp the Refinery’s operations has been suspended indefinitely.
Between 06:00 and 11:00 a.m., TOR planned to deploy 40 personnel at the Motorway Roundabout, Rana Roundabout, Valco Roundabout, MPS Roundabout, Hospital Roundabout, and Community 5 Traffic Light.
Mr. Bernard Owusu, National Chairman of the GTPCWU, disclosed in an interview in Tema that the places were agreed upon with the Ghana Police Service after they wrote to warn them about their plans in accordance with the Public Order Act.
Mr. Owusu added that the picketing is part of a larger attempt to put pressure on the government to restart the ailing Refinery, which has been idle for some time.
If running at full capacity, TOR would be able to supply 50% of the country’s overall household consumption, 100% of Residual Fuel Oil (RFO) for industrial operations, 20% to 25% of LPG consumption, and 100% of Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK).
They indicated that Ghana required around $4.8 billion per year to acquire petroleum goods, and that if TOR was fully operational, the FX requirement for petroleum product imports would be cut in half.
Another benefit highlighted was the reduction in domestic ex-pump costs as a result of the abolition of some import charges, such as the freight rate of roughly $92/Mt for petrol, $101/Mt for diesel and $83/Mt for LPG.
