The Minister of Public Enterprises, Joseph Cudjoe, has bemoaned the lack of investments in the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR).

He said this is due to political interference in the operation of the refinery.

According to the minister whenever he interacts with investors, they say the refinery is a “political football” and is unstable, therefore they do not want to risk their investments.

Speaking during his turn at the Ministry of Information’s Meet-The-Press series, Joseph Cudjoe said: “Anytime you have spoken to someone out there to bring investment to TOR, and I’m talking about serious investors in the refinery business, the response I have received is, TOR is a political football in Ghana.”

“Therefore, which serious investor will come and expose his good money, corporate image and personal reputation to a political football,” he added.

According to him, the investors “will be politically witch-hunted,” or subjected to “unnecessary and uninformed public commentary,” when they start dealing with the refinery.

Joseph Cudjoe also added that the investors fear that their image may be jeopardized if they conduct business with politicians which may affect their ability to do business elsewhere.

“Private investors usually don’t want to be known. They want their names out of the public domain. But in Ghana, get close to a public asset and see what will happen to you. People have money to invest, but they don’t want their names to be dragged in public as if they are thieves,” he emphasized.

The Minister criticized the prevailing environment where investors are often branded as thieves when they show interest in revitalizing non-performing public assets.

“We have a certain cultural environment in Ghana where when you have money and are getting close to a public asset to invest in, we start branding you a thief. So, it makes it difficult to attract serious private investment, and good money into public assets. Because people don’t want their reputation to be soiled in Ghana when they have to go and invest in other countries like Norway, UAE when he comes here to invest his money in TOR, and it is as if he is stealing Ghana’s money, that’s the conversation among investors out there,” he indicated.

The minister noted that it is for this reason that investors choose to start their own projects, instead of investing in existing ones.

“So don’t be surprised that directly opposite TOR and in the same industrial enclave, there is a certain Sentuo, that would rather come out and build another refinery but then we could have offered TOR to the same investor to put money in it.

“Don’t be surprised that the proposed Petroleum Hub development project will attract another serious refinery, and our TOR will be there because we’ve made TOR a political football,” the minister lamented.

SSD/MA

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