Mr Edwin Provencal, Managing Director (MD), Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST), says at the end of 2020, the Company made a profit of GH¢31 million.

He noted that the profit was attained in 2020 through the efforts and sacrifices of staff, management and the board.

“Though we budgeted to make a loss of GH¢86 million, we did not only get to zero, but we crossed zero and made GH¢31 million profit. This is your Company,” Mr Provencal, stated in a presentation in Accra, when he took his turn at the maiden weekly media engagement series for State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in Accra.

The programme, organised by the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA), is aimed at enabling the SOEs’ CEOs to share success stories with their various stakeholders and the citizenry.

Mr Provencal said the strategy was to enhance operational excellence and aggressively promote businesses.

“We think there is good opportunity for BOST. We think BOST can work and we know it can work because we’ve seen things turning around,” he said.

“The thing about government institutions is that when government institutions work very well, we create a private sector drive because the private sector depends on the government.”

“So, we believe that BOST can be run like any world-class organisation. It is possible. And so going forward the next four years, the focus is on operational excellence, holding people accountable and aggressively growing our business,” Mr Provencal said.

He said in the past, the Company used to be saddled with numerous challenges such as loans and debt payments, however, under his leadership, the fortunes had turned around.

Mr Provencal said though gains were made, they were not yet out of the woods.

He said with the help of the Government, BOST had been able to pay 96 percent of the US$624 million debts; saying the rest was still work in progress and hopefully by the end of this year it would be cleared, saying, most of the Company’s loans with Banks had been cleared.

The MD said BOST’s mandate was to develop a network of storage tanks, pipelines and other bulk transportation infrastructure throughout the country.

Mr Stephen Asamoah-Boateng, Director-General, SIGA, said the Authority wanted the SOEs to engage with Ghanaians through the media to let them know their achievements and challenges.