Engineer on trial for "causing financial loss to state"

A Technical Operator of Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) Seidu Iddisah, whose alleged negligence led to the waste of 60,000 litres of oil, valued at 120 million cedis has appeared before a Tema Circuit Court for causing financial loss to the state.

Iddisah, who is also a monitoring officer, has pleaded not guilty and is on a 120 million cedis bail, pending a report from the Attorney-General's Department.

ASP Robert Aganiba told the court that TOR has three main tanks, numbers 101, 102, and 103 at the Accra Plains Deport near the Kpone Police barrier. He said tank 101 and 102 store diesel, while 103 stores gasoline super.

He told the court that in order to prevent spillage and other technical problems, adequate monitoring measures are instituted when finished products are being pumped into the tanks.

He said on May 27, 2001, Iddisah took over duty from a colleague, John Alhassan from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am. Alhassan informed Iddasah that diesel was being pumped into tank 102 and that tank 101 was full.

ASP Aganiba said Iddasah found out that tank number 101 was not filled to its capacity as claimed by his colleague. He therefore, changed over supply from 102 to 101 with the view to filling it to the required level.

However, he left the site, allegedly to attend to nature's call.

The court heard that a security man on duty in the area later heard an unusual noise from the direction of tank 101 and rushed there only to find that it had overflowed.

The prosecution said the security man went round and found Iddisah asleep. He woke the accused up but he could not immediately control the spillage, thereby wasting volumes of oil.