Sale of TOR against the will of Ghanaians – MP

Mr Ussif Mustapha, New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Yagba/Kubori in the Northern Region is advocating against the sale of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) by Government.

He said the move by the Government to sell the country’s only refinery was against the will of majority of Ghanaians and urged government to rescind its decision.

Mr Mustapha disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra on Friday.

He said although there were challenges in the operations of TOR, the challenges were human and could be solved by Government, adding, “The challenges at TOR is mismanagement and can therefore be managed well by Government if appropriate measures are put in place.”

Mr Mustapha, who is also a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Energy said Ghana was discovering oil in commercial quantities and that TOR, instead of being privatized should rather be expanded to meet the increasing demand of oil and Gas in the country and other neighbouring countries.

He said the Government of the National Democratic Congress which claims to boost the private sector should rather develop a programme that would allow the private sector to go into agreement with Government to construct a new refinery.

Mr Mustapha also noted that there were many private companies in the country which can construct a refinery even without the financial support of Government but they are not getting the support and opportunity.

“Selling TOR means Ghana is going to lose the small dividend that it gets from the refinery, we have to own it before we can get any profit from it, if we sell it then we have lost everything that comes from it.”

He appealed to Ghanaians to resist Government’s decision to sell TOR and advised his fellow MP’s to kick against the matter if it is brought to the floor of Parliament.

Source: GNA