A deputy Minister of Energy in charge of the petroleum sector, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam, has indicated that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government has managed the affairs of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) better than the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government.

According to him, TOR witnessed some growth within the NPP tenure.

He made this known at ‘The Energy Manifesto Town Hall’ organised by the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (CBOD) and its partners.

He said: “There was no single drilling rig in Ghana. If you don’t drill, how do you build an industry? The success of the oil industry is drilling because if you don’t drill you will not make discoveries. You will not even understand the geology of the area. Our oil industry was collapsing on us but for the timely intervention of the NPP government, we can now see the hope that our industry is going to survive and grow.”

He also noted that the NDC left a lot of unaudited records and debts in their books in relation to TOR before their exit.

“On the issue of TOR, we had the same problem, unaudited accounts from 2013 to 2016 when they left office. How could TOR be profitable at the time they left government. What was the basis for that profitability?” he added.

He further disclosed that the NPP inherited a debt of $345 million at TOR from the Mahama-led NDC government.

“We didn’t come and see any profit, rather we came to meet the debt. For example, outstanding debts of 345m dollars were found in the books of TOR. If that existed, what profit did TOR make? How did they account for this outstanding debt,” he asked.

He added that the current government “also found about one billion Ghana cedis was owed to third parties and traders and financial institutions on their [TOR’s] books.”