Investigate lay-offs at Tullow Ghana – Alex Mould to Petroleum Commission

Former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Alex Mould, is urging the Petroleum commission to probe Tullow Ghana’s decision to cut jobs.

The International Oil Company, Tullow Ghana, has hinted a 25 percent lay-off of its working population in Ghana as it suffers low production in the country.

The job cuts which is a part of Tullow redundancy process will lead to the departure of 35 percent of Tullow Ghana’s senior leadership as well as an overall 25 percent job losses for staff made up of both Ghanaians and expatriates.

In an interview with Citi Business News, the former GNPC boss said the country’s leading oil producer’s troubles are largely from its global operations, adding that the Ghana operations should not have been affected.

“Any business when you are cutting down costs, you will cut especially in the non-core areas. My concern is that why are they cutting down costs in their only revenue-generating fields which are in Ghana. Why are they also transferring most of the support services from Ghana to the UK?”

“If you look at this critically, they are actually employing foreigners in the UK to do work Ghanaians should be doing here. I charge the Petroleum Commission to look at this very critically and have a conversation with Tullow.” Alex Mould averred.

There have been several calls by the Petroleum and Chemical Workers Union of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) on government to review the local content policy for the oil and gas sector.

This, the TUC believes will shield Ghanaians from layoffs when production companies face operational challenges.

Tullow restructuring

The planned restructuring process, Bloomberg notes, is likely to lead to nearly 40 percent loss of the workforce in its Kenya operations as well as the shut of offices in Dublin, Ireland and Cape Town, South Africa.

Ghana, being one of the key markets for the Anglo-Irish oil company, is going to be hit hard by the restructuring process.