Executive Director of the Institute for Energy Security (IES), Nana Amoasi VII has questioned the government’s commitment to reviving the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) to provide cheap fuel products for Ghanaians.
According to him, over the past few years, there have been policy inconsistencies from the government making it difficult to judge its direction and priorities when it comes to TOR.
He urged Ghanaians to mount pressure on the government to revamp the facility because that is the only way to achieve fuel sustainability.
Speaking during an interview, the IES Executive Director questioned what the government’s policy on TOR really is.
Citing an example, Nana Amoasi VIII indicated that one former Energy Minister claimed the government was going to build a petroleum hub elsewhere and use the Tema facility for storage.
He averred that on the same platform as the Minister, the Managing Director who did not appear to know anything about this plan was courting investors on the basis that the government was going to expand the existing facility.
The government, he said, is fast losing policy credibility in the energy sector because of a lack of coordination between what it says it intends to do and what is actually happening.
He said, “You say one thing and do another. You mooted an idea six years ago about a petroleum hub. Where should you start the hub from?”
“You start with what you have today; the resource you have. Why do you leave TOR out of the plan and say I going to start or build a new petroleum hub from the Western Region,” he quizzed.
“We have come to a conclusion at the IES that the government has lost policy credibility in the energy sector.”
Nana Amoasi VII rebuffed arguments the plan could have stemmed from the fact that Ghana’s oil is produced in the Western Region and cited the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp petroleum hub as an example.
“Go and see whether they produce oil there and yet they have the biggest petroleum hub where we go and buy fuel every month and every day.”
He pointed out that Ghana’s biggest refinery and storage hub sits in Tema with all the pipelines and argued creation of a petroleum hub should therefore start in Tema and expanded to the Western Region.
He stated today a private refinery had been built by an individual in a matter of two years and yet this hub government mooted over four years ago is yet to leave the drawing board.
The government’s posture, he said, should indicate what it intends to do rather than what is written in documents and stressed the administration has not demonstrated it could carry out such a project.