Stop peddling lies about TOR – Management

The management of Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has asked the Ghanaian public to desist from peddling falsehood and inaccurate stories about the refinery, its management and operations.

A statement signed by the Public Affairs Manager, Dr Kingsley Antwi-Boasiako noted that the situation where certain individuals hide behind their institutions and quickly run to the media with untruths and malicious information about TOR just to court attention and win believability from the public is negatively affecting the good works of the current management as it strides to put the company on sound footing.

This follows claims by the Institute for Energy Security (IES) to the effect that there is leadership crisis, factionalism and mismanagement at TOR, and that lack of due diligence is causing financial loss to the state.

The IES in a statement signed by its Principal Research Officer Richmond Rockson said : “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. When persons with requisite capacity are sidelined for substandard people to run affairs, the result is chaotic.

“To forestall further losses to the state, the Institute for Energy Security wishes to once again call on the Ministry of Energy and the government to pay special attention to the country’s only refinery by addressing the leadership crisis, which continues to negatively affect the operations of TOR.”

However, Dr Antwi-Boasiako stated that: "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."

He added that comments such as that of the IES could end up creating the so called 'factionalism' and sensationalism at the refinery.

"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,” he said.