Togbi Sri Owes TOR ¢100B

FRAGA OIL IN ¢100B RIP-OFF AT TOR

… As gov’t works on $600m bailout

As Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) struggles to raise credit to import crude oil due to its poor financial status, The Chronicle can report that Fraga Oil, owned by Mr. Nyonyo Agboada, alias Togbi Sri, owes the oil refinery GH¢10, 184,641 .62 as at October 19th 2009.

This makes the company the largest debtor to TOR. The total debt owed by the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) within the period under review stands at over GH¢62 million. The huge debt compelled the management of TOR to recently publish names of the OMCs who owed, and also cut their supply.

The Chronicle investigations, however, revealed that though FRAGA Oil was among those whose names were listed for publication, it was secretly taken out by unknown hands at TOR.

The latter then kept on supplying oil to the company, when supply for those who owe lesser amounts had been cut.

The Chronicle also discovered that a guarantee of GH¢200,000 - posted by FRAGA Oil had long expired, but for unknown reasons, TOR, which is crying for credit, was still supplying the commodity to the company to pile up its debt.

Despite its indebtedness, the company mustered courage to put in an application for license to operate as a bulk distributor, a request which was turned down.

With the persistent pressure on TOR and government to raise the needed funds to import crude oil, The Chronicle learnt from unimpeachable sources that FRAGA Oil and its directors would soon be put before court, for the recovery of the debt.

Mr. Nyonyo Agboada failed to pick the numerous calls that were put through to his Vodafone cell phone number by this reporter to react to the story.

The Acting Chief Executive Officer of TOR, Dr. Kwame Ampofo, also refused to answer calls from The Chronicle, including text messages that were sent to him by this reporter to ascertain why TOR was still supplying oil to FRAGA Oil, when supplies of similarly guilty OMCs had been stopped.

An Official source contacted at the Energy Ministry, however, confirmed the story and said efforts were being made to retrieve the money from the company.

Meanwhile, another credible source has hinted The Chronicle that the government, through its Transactional Adviser, the Ecobank, is on the verge of securing a $600 million credit facility to clean the books of TOR, and make it a credit worthy business entity.

All banks in the country have refused to deal with TOR, because of its poor balance sheet.

According to the source, $300 million of the credit facility would be paid to Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB), which is owed over ¢9 trillion old cedis by TOR.

The remaining amount would be in the form of bonds.

The Chronicle gathered that government has been compelled to take such a decision because GCB, which keeps the oil account of TOR, has in most of the cases failed to carry out an order to pay Letter of Credit (LOC) issued by other banks for importation of crude oil into the country.

The GCB does not understand why it should carry out such an order and pay its competitors, when it is owed by the same TOR.

Apart from the GCB debt, TOR also owes Glencoe, Victor and Cirrus, who were importing crude oil for the country, amounts of $62 million, $100 million and $20 million respectively.

The three companies have stopped the importation of crude oil as a result of the debt, thus exacerbating the problem with the importation of the commodity into the country.

More anon.