The Acting Secretary of the Forum For Rebuilding the Convention People’s Party (FRCPP) says the proposed conversion of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) from crude refinery into a tank farm for the storage of fuel is worrying and visionless.
Mr. Peterkin Kwame Kin-Adano says, “We register our strongest protest against this massaging attempts being made by the NPP government to completely scrap and turn TOR into a tank farm rather than expanding its production facilities.”
Mr. Kin-Adano made this known during a press conference held by the FRCPP to state the position of the CPP on the matter in Tema.
He observed that TOR could thrive if the necessary infrastructure were added and maintained in the appropriate manner “then the troubles of our refinery shall be a thing of the past and we wouldn’t be talking about scrapping it again to building others.”
He disputed the fact that the refinery, which had been operating since 1963, may be under performing because successive governments might not have done anything to expand the facilities but had rather milked it.
He added that, “Every good investor or foresighted president knows the importance of starting from very humble beginnings and advancing in the cause of time in order to match resources, projects and the need of the people at a time.”
He observed that governments over the years mismanaged state-owned enterprises by starving them of operational funds, adding that, “Corruption and other negative practices contributed to the low productivity of a refinery which could have expanded our employment capabilities as a nation.”
“We the forum for rebuilding CPP, find it worrisome that almost all the state-owned enterprises commissioned by the CPP government are being destroyed by successive governments,” he said.
He hinted that if it were job creation the NPP wanted, it should rather expand the production of TOR than thinking about collapsing it.
Source: Ghananewsagency.org