We are saddened by baseless, insulting conclusions by petroleum workers over Torentco lease – TOR Board

The Board of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has expressed their disappointment with the General Transport, Petroleum, and Chemical Workers Union (GTPCWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) Ghana after the group stated its blatant disagreement with the deal to lease the refinery to a group named Torentco Asset Management.

The board noted that the workers union had not properly scrutinized the deal to ascertain its benefits before jumping to conclusions.

In a statement on November 26, 2023, “The Board is saddened and disappointed by the precipitous action taken by the leaders of the GTPCWU both nationally and at TOR who have taken it upon themselves to jump to baseless and, frankly, insulting conclusions without engaging management or the Board to ascertain the facts.”

“It is unclear what has motivated such behaviour by the leaders of GTPCWU, but the board and management will conduct an internal process to understand and deal with this. They continue to express concerns about the impact of the lease on the rights of the workers, but even this has not been articulated,” parts of the statement read.

The board also added that assertions made by the union that their members were in support of the opposition against the deal were untrue.

“Their other callous allegations are complete without merit and thoroughly refuted by the board,” the statement said.

Background

The GTPCWU petitioned the Special Prosecutor and the Attorney General to investigate the lease agreement between TOR and the Torentco.

In the petition, the Workers Union said, “We wish to request that your highly esteemed office investigate and intervene in the ongoing lease arrangement of Tema Oil Refinery to Torentco Asset Management Limited, now Tema Energy and Processing Limited, with the same individuals involved.”

It added that “the actions of the individuals behind Tema Energy and Processing Limited seek to induce workers of TOR with 20% of its shares through misrepresentation of workers in an entity by the name “TOR Workers Charity Trust” that never existed nor heard of at TOR, apart from the five individual directors and direct beneficiaries of this trust.”

They added that the country might be shortchanged because the Board of Directors of TOR has been compromised in the deal.

The union wrote: “We are tempted to believe the BoDs have been compromised to shortchange the country, Ghana. Otherwise, why will the BoDs be adamant in the face of all these red flags? Even when entities such as Falcon American Oil and Legacy Capital have also approached the management of TOR with very lucrative and compelling proposals, the BoD and Management have been resolute in ensuring that regardless of all the red flags, they will lease TOR to Torentco/TEPL for six (6) years.”

SSD/MA

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