Calls for the revival of TOR intensify
BOST has deviated from its mandate, Duncan Amoah
Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers, Duncan Amoah, has noted government's failure to adequately prepare against petroleum crisis is having a bad effect on the country.
According to him, the government has not taken heed to caution by various players in the industry against cushioning and providing solutions to Ghana's fuel challenges.
He said, "We are not simply planning for our people. We're getting into very difficult times, and between now and December, it's not going to be child's play.
"We keep saying these things so that action could be taken to avert any catastrophe. We don't get to see too much of the action. You would rather hear justifications, rationalizations, and attempts to defend sometimes things that we should be moving away from," he said in an interview with JoyBusiness.
Duncan Amoah believes that depending solely on the storage capacity of Bulk Distribution Companies is delicate for Ghana as a country.
He made the statement whiles adding that the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation facility (BOST) have deviated from its mandate of storing crude oil for difficult times.
"There was a good reason for which we put up a bulk oil storage and transportation facility. I have said that it has been modelled just similar to the Oklahoma cushion in the United States. What they are able to do is to store crude for as long as they can so that when times are difficult, they can release crude onto the market just to augment, I mean, simply help. So, they plan for the rainy day. We fail to plan," Amoah explained.
He continued, "We simply buy and sell; that's all we do. And for this reason, if you read a lot of the papers yesterday, BOST is making profits at the time that I am worried about what I pay for fuel, at the time that I still pay for a certain BOST margin to maintain a facility; at a time that I still pay PDM for BOST to move products from depot to depot; the only benefit that I am getting is that BOST says that it has made a profit. Well, it will sound good.
"But go back to what you were set up for in 1993 when we decided as a country to have a buffer. That buffer was not meant to be there for profit; it was meant to be there to cushion everybody in difficult or times of distress as we find ourselves," he pointed out.
"Unfortunately, I said it elsewhere today; while the country Ghana is probably heading for the Kumasi road, BOST is headed for Takoradi," he added.
SSD/MA
Duncan Amoah is Executive Secretary for COPEC