TOR recover debt

THE Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has within two weeks recovered GH¢14 million owed it by oil marketing companies (OMCs).
THE Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr Kwame Ampofo, who took office about four weeks ago said the debt collection was part of an initiative by the new management to recover all outstanding debts owed by the OMCs to prevent the refinery from collapse.
The CEO, who made this known in an interaction with the Daily Graphic on Sunday said the action was also to safeguard the operations of a number of banks who advance monies to the refinery.
He said there were too many irregularities in the refinery that needed drastic measures to turn around to relieve TOR from its huge debt to enable it to carry out its duties effectively to meet the demand of Ghanaians.
Dr Ampofo said for instance that the CEO of the refinery had an unlimited allocation of fuel, a situation, he said, led to abuse of the system at all levels.
He said the refinery spent a lot of money installing CCTV cameras in the premises but had to recruit a lot of security personnel.
Dr Ampofo said the refinery had the capacity to employ not more than 600 workers, but noted that there were over 1000 workers currently on the payroll of the company.
On the oil find, he said, the government was developing a local content to be imputed into the Oil and Gas Bill to be presented to Parliament soon.
Dr Ampofo explained that the local content were measures being put together to protect the indigenes of the local communities within the areas of operation and the general public for the country to reap the maximum benefit from the oil find.
He stated that the bill seeks to prevent oil companies from brining into the country certain kinds of workers such as drivers, cleaners and cooks among others.
It also seeks to prevent the outsourcing of some types of services to foreign companies, some of them he mentioned as transport companies and food vendors.
Dr. Ampofo said the idea was to create more job avenues for a lot of Ghanaians.
He said oil companies would be expected to register their enterprises in Ghana and must be in partnership with some other indigenous companies.