Business News of Saturday, 6 February 2016

Source: kasapafmonline.com

Ghana Gas in serious debt

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The Ghana National Gas Company Limited is hoping to clear its soaring debt in the next few months, officials say.

This follows help from government and the PURC to liquidate VRA’s public debt.

Ghana Gas is confronted seriously within this short period of time with serious debt because all the lean gas it produced has not been paid for by the VRA. The VRA owes Ghana Gas approximately US$200million for gas supplies

“Some work, I know, has been done by government. The president set up a team to look at the negative debt and debts that are owed by the various power companies. So I believe that sometime in March we should be able to get all our monies from the VRA,” Dr. George Sipa Yankey said at a swearing-in ceremony of the board members.

Meanwhile the Petroleum Minister, Kofi Armah Buah told the new board that as more gas comes on-stream it will be important that the infrastructure is expanded.

“As you know, there are plans to bring more gas on-stream. We are talking about the TEN and OCTP, and even other projects that are going to come in the future.

What strategies are we going to put in place to make sure Ghana Gas is ready for all those gas volumes that will come? Your responsibility will be to work with management to address all the technical issues,” he said.

“GNPC as the aggregator of gas must, of importance, work closely with the Ghana Gas Company to ensure that we do not leave any weak links in the value chain.

The intention of the government is not to allow GNPC to use GNGC as a political football, but use the two companies to strengthen each other for the benefit of the people of Ghana,” the minister said.