Acute Fuel Shortage: Informer pushes gov’t to act

Government over the weekend announced the release of its strategic oil reserve to cushion the severe fuel shortage in parts of the country.

According to a release issued by the Ministry of Information and Media Relations and signed by the out-going Minister, Mahama Ayariga, President John Dramani Mahama, last Friday, directed the Bulk Oil Storage & Transportation (BOST) Company Limited to discharge fuel in its facilities dotted across the country to ease the pressure.

The directive follows the suspension of the services of Bulk Oil Distribution Companies (BDCs) over government’s indebtedness to its members to a tune of Ghc1.5 billion, although the figure has been disputed by the Ministry of Finance.

The Informer last Friday, exposed a conspiracy between some unpatriotic citizens at the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) and that of the Ghana Chamber of Bulk Distribution Companies (BDCs) on Government.

As part of the sabotage, it came to light that even though the Bulk Oil Storage & Transportation (BOST) Company Limited has enough stock in its reserve which when released, will mitigate the severe fuel shortage, the NPA according to an insider source (at NPA) refused to grant BOST the permit to save the government from the huge embarrassment brought by the BDCs.

The concerned NPA worker also called on the government to resource the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), since it is its core responsibility to see to the supply of refined crude in the country.

Established by law to process crude oil and market petroleum products; TOR, due to lack of capital injection, has virtually been run down and is now seen by many as a white elephant, defeating the purpose for which it was established.