All six MDs under Akufo-Addo suffered instability, weakened operations – Managing Director

The Managing Director of Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Edmond Kombat, has blamed frequent changes in the refinery's leadership under the previous Akufo-Addo administration for disrupting management continuity and contributing to the difficulties that affected its operations.

He said the refinery had six managing directors and an interim management committee during the 8 years of the former administration, a situation he believes prevented successive management teams from implementing and sustaining long-term decisions.

Speaking in an interview with Bernard Avle on Channel One TV's The Point of View on Wednesday, November 11, Mr Kombat said TOR's complex operational challenges required stable leadership and sufficient time for management decisions to produce results.

“In eight years, they had six managing directors, including an interim management committee. And an IMC of three personnel. So let’s say roughly seven MDs. You see that the turnover was very short.

“They were not refining, and I think they had an instability in leadership,” he said.

Mr Kombat also identified the failure to produce independently audited financial statements for several years as another major challenge that affected the refinery's management.

He said the absence of audited accounts made it difficult for successive administrations to make informed decisions about the company's financial position.

“I think they didn’t really have a lot of time to make decisions. And then an audited account just piled up. It was a management account, not an independently audited account,” he stated.

According to him, the current management has collaborated with the Ghana Audit Service to audit the refinery's accounts covering a 7-year period and organised an annual general meeting to consider financial statements for 2017 to 2025.

He further suggested that doubts within the previous administration about TOR's commercial viability had undermined its future, with some officials at the Energy Ministry reportedly considering converting the facility into a tank farm or handing it over for alternative use.

“There are indications that some of the people in the government at the Energy Ministry didn’t really believe that TOR was viable. So there was this argument about either making it a tank farm or probably giving it out,” he said.

However, Mr Kombat maintained that the refinery remained a critical national asset, highlighting its storage capacity of 1 million metric tonnes and refining capacity of 45,000 barrels per stream day.

“If you have a refinery like this, the refinery of TOR, the storage is one million metric tons; it’s like three times that of BOST, and you have a refinery that is 45,000 capacity,” he said.

He stressed that the immediate priority was to consolidate the refinery's recovery and ensure that subsequent management teams sustained and built on the progress achieved.