Put TOR in skillful hands – Kwame Jantuah

A Member of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee Kwame Jantuah has called on government to be bold and pay attention to the managerial aspect of the Tema Oil Refinery.

His call comes after a think-tank accused the management of TOR of factionalism, vindictiveness and poor management practices.

“Today, technical and operational lapses, factionalism, vindictiveness, mismanagement, absence of teamwork, lack of due diligence have consumed Tema Oil Refinery and is causing financial loss to the state”.

“TOR’s Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) which was started on 2nd January 2018 after a delayed turnaround maintenance for 9 months as against a 3-month scheduled program due to poor planning; had to undergo a forced-shutdown as a result of non-compliance to procedures and practices. As a practice, every maintenance work should have been concluded with a Post-turnaround report to validate the integrity of the major parts and components. From post start-up developments, it is clear that the integrity of the Plant’s major parts were not established before the rush start-up,” The Institute for Energy Security said in a statement.

Speaking to Francis Abban on Morning Starr Tuesday, Mr. Jantuah said government must be critical about who manages TOR.

“It is time government takes control. There is a managerial part of TOR and we need those with the skills to manage it. It is a shame that we cannot handle an oil refinery. It is absolute shame. The political football that we’ve used TOR for has not helped us at all. In Brazil, if you have not been in the industry for long, you cannot manage the Energy Ministry. This is not to say our Energy Minister is not qualified to be the Minister of the sector. If we are done paying the TOR Debt Recovery Levy, why are we still paying? We need answers.TOR is still where it is…it doesn’t make sense. We should be refining and exporting to other countries by now,” he said.

Meanwhile, TOR has in a statement denied the claims by the IES.

“For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state that there is no leadership crisis at TOR and that management and the staff of the refinery are all working in unison to carry out the core mandate of the refinery; refining crude oil into finished petroleum products. The MD, Isaac Osei is on good terms with the General Managers and the Managers as well as the entire staff of the refinery. We are therefore at a loss on the baseless claims by Mr Rockson that there is leadership crisis at TOR.

“We are aware of the soft spot that Mr Richmond Rockson may have for the former administration of this refinery under which some of his friends and colleagues may have held certain positions. Although no major shake up has been done to the management structure of the refinery, What Mr Rockson should know is that the information he may be receiving from some of these people may be borne out of parochial and selfish interest, and thus he must do well to clarify them before sending the information out to the public domain,” the statement said.