TOR Divisional Union of GTPCWU calls for re-assessment of Torentco's credibility

The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) Division of the General Transport Petroleum Chemical Workers Union (GTPCWU), has urged the company’s management and stakeholders. to cease the lease agreement process between TOR and Torentco.

The advice was given in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency and jointly signed by Ms Serwah Duncan-Williams and Mr Anthony Koomson, the Chairpersons of the Junior Staff Union of GTPCWU and Professional and Managerial Staff Union (PMSU of GTPCWU) respectively.

The statement said, “the ongoing agreement is a replica of the ECG/PDS Scandal, where under the supervision of all state actors, an entity without capacity and credibility took over the state asset of ECG”.

It said the unions had formally requested for and reviewed the leasing agreement’s substance and discussed all of their reservations about Management and the Board of Directors’ legitimacy and capacity.

It stated that in the lease agreement’s preamble ‘D’ for example showed that, “the lease will receive financial and technical support from a leading global energy company pursuant to the terms of the processing agreement to perform its obligation under this agreement and the O&M agreement”.

While the Board was still attempting to provide an answer to this and other questions, the executive of the union stumbled upon the due diligence report, which established and confirmed Torentco’s lack of credibility and capacity, the statement said.

The statement said the Unions were then questioning which entity would oversee the financial and technical support under the new consortium proposed by Torentco.

It addressed some of the issues raised in the due diligence report, saying that “the surrogate of the lessee was primarily selected due to their supposed alignment with Vitol’s capacity and credibility in the petroleum industry; however, there is no evidence from Vitol to substantiate the suggested alliance between the two for technical and financial support”.

The report also stated that the lessee lacked the financial and technical capability to carry out its obligations under the proposed transaction without Vitol, indicating the fact that it also lacked the necessary corporate and governance structures and resources to fully manage the assets of TOR in this transaction.

It argued that the lessee had poor corporate housekeeping, the necessary licenses to operate the proposed downstream oil business, and there was no evidence that the company had qualified technical and financial partners to work on the proposed transaction, according to the union’s claim that the due diligence report.

Insofar as a public-private partnership was a non-negotiable option for TOR, it was declared that leasing it out without using capacity, credibility, or value-for-money benchmarks was unacceptable and would be refused, the statement said.