TOR has been on a debt spree in the past fews years – Chair of IMC

Chairman of the Interim Management Committee at the Tema Oil Refinery, Norbet Anku says the organisation has been on a debt spree in the past fews years and owes “almost everybody including their lunch providers.”

“Everybody who has been in TOR knows that these things (stealing and product losses) happen. For some reason, they are unable to bring it to the public domain. Everyday products are missing and it keeps happening. Everybody knows it. So I have given those indicted 30 days to explain themselves on how the product losses occurred. Nobody is contesting the 105 thousand litres of diesel that is missing or any of the rest including the 18 big drums,” Mr. Anku stated on Star FM.

“As we speak TOR owes everybody. We owe GRA over 185million cedis, we owe SSNIT, we owe Tier 2 and even the company that provides us lunch.”

Already, TOR is in the news after it emerged that products worth some Ghc42million in the custody of the refinery have been spirited away by unknown persons.

Some staff have since been interdicted in connection with the theft.

The Minority in Parliament has also vowed to instigate a Parliamentary probe into the thefts accusing the Akufo-Addo government of mismanagement and corruption that has collapsed TOR.

However, Mr. Anku said he was confident that the fortunes of TOR can be turned around.

On Tuesday, TOR issued a statement saying some staff including management members are being probed over the corruption at the firm.

“…The IMC has committed to establishing a ‘zero-tolerance culture for unacceptable product losses’, commenced investigations into a number of product storage and transfer losses recorded in the company over a period of time,” the IMC stated in the press release on Tuesday.

“Consequently, a number of workers who hold various positions of responsibility and accountability with respect to the transfer of products have been queried and interdicted pending the outcome of investigations.”

Source: GhanaWeb