Former New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for Obuasi East, Edward Ennin, has described as painful the government's failure to get the Tema Oil Refinery working.
According to the former chairman of parliament's committee on mines and energy, his investigation has established that it will cost around $5 million to fix the state-owned refinery, which has been out of service for some years.
"I recently went to the Tema Oil Refinery to conduct my own investigations on why the refinery, which was working daily in my days as chairman of parliament's mines and energy committee, is no longer working. I was told some components of their machines need to be replaced, and when I inquired about the cost, I was told it is in the region of $5 million," the former MP said.
"I asked again if the machines could refine our local crude if $5 million was invested to fix them, and the answer was a resounding yes. The person I spoke to is in a higher position," he told Okay FM morning show host Kwame Nkrumah Tikese during an interview.
Describing the situation as painful, the former MP disclosed that the situation at TOR is a result of some people with power deliberately stopping the refinery from working in pursuit of their personal interests.
"It is very painful if it is true that all it will take is $5 million being invested into Tema Oil Refinery to add value to our crude oil and our leaders are not showing concern.
"It came up during my investigation; I asked why nothing is being done, and I was told it is because some of the leaders are lifting oil, so they don't want the refinery to succeed. It is the same situation with our bauxite industry. They own trucks for hauling in the Obuasi area, so the day any government attempts to get the railway system in the area working, it will fail. They are people in both the NPP and NDC who have an interest in it. But I pray a government will come that will end all that," he stated while appealing to the government to get TOR running.
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