Gov't forced into full disclosure on Sahara oil deal

It has now been established that the 30,000 bpd allocation of crude oil from Nigeria and the lifting contract entered into between the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) and the Sahara Energy Resource Limited for the supply of crude oil was done under conditions of utmost urgency by the government.
The explanation, which was given by the Minister of Energy, Mr. Kan Dapaah at a news conference yesterday, is supported to clear the air with regard to continuous media reports of suspicions over the Sahara oil deal and bring to a halt the media speculations about the secrecy of the contract. Briefing the well-attended press conference, Mr. Kan Dapaah said, on assumption of office, the position of petroleum products was dangerously unsatisfactory. There was only one week's supply of crude oil; two weeks supply of gasoline and between three and four days of gas oil.
TOR, he said, was so heavily indebted to its banks that it could not raise funds to pay for crude oil and petroleum products to meet the country's needs, adding there is no doubt that had government not acted swiftly and decisively to secure assistance from Nigeria, the persistent shortages of fuel, which became almost endemic in the run up to the December elections would have probably been around.
According to him, it was in view of this that top-level intervention had to be made between the Presidents of Ghana and Nigeria. Discussions and negotiations were entered into with the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC), which resulted in the allocation contract for NNPC to supply 30,000 barrels per day of crude oil to TOR.
Mr. Dapaah noted that there was no time to consider competitive tendering, adding, "In the oil business one can use industry benchmarks to determine the competitiveness of prices." This, he noted, does not mean that there was lack of transparency.
He explained that Sahara, which was one of two companies nominated by NNPC, was established in 1995 to trade in oil and petroleum products to and from Nigeria, adding it is a wholly indigenous owned Nigeria oil trading company.
The Board of Sahara Energy, according to Mr. Kan Dapaah, is made up of: Usman Ibn-Mohammed, (Nigerian) Chairman, Tonye Cole, Tonye Adeniji, Titi Adjeniji, all Nigerians and members of the Board, with its local representative being Dr. Kwame Nyantakyi-Owusu.
Despite dark clouds hanging over Dr. Nyantakyi-Owusu's political affiliation, Mr. Kan Dapaah claims he had nothing to do with the signing of the contract.
He revealed the salient points of the Agreement as follows: a management fee of US$0.265 per each barrel of oil lifted. He said this means that the lower lifting fees provided by Sahara would save TOR and the country US$0.68 per barrel. This figure translates to about US$7.4 million per year…
Those present at the conference's high table included the Government Energy Advisor, Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby, TOR Chief Executive Yaw Akoto, and Kwabena Agyapong, Deputy Government Spokesman.