The General Transport Petroleum Chemical Workers Union, the mother union of Tema Oil Refinery employees, has revealed that the refinery is only carrying out finished product activities instead of fulfilling its core mandate of refining crude oil. This revelation came after the workers held a news conference to air their grievances about the refinery’s inactivity.
National Chairman of the GTPCWU, Bernard Owusu, stated that a successful meeting was held with the Minister of Energy to discuss upgrading the refinery’s operations. However, the planned picketing and series of activities in public locations to support their demands cannot take place as planned because the Police said they did not provide them with sufficient notice as required by the Public Order Act.
Despite the setback, TOR workers in Tema plan to engage in a series of industrial actions between May 2 and 5. TOR workers are also scheduled to picket every day, between 06:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m., at various locations including the Motorway Roundabout, Rana Roundabout, MP’s Roundabout, Hospital Roundabout, and Community 5 Traffic Light.
Bernard Owusu revealed that Ghana spends about 4.8 billion dollars on petroleum product imports each year. He emphasized that if TOR were refining crude, the forex requirement for importing petroleum products would be reduced by more than half.
Restoring TOR to full capacity would have several advantages for Ghana, including cheaper local ex-pump costs due to the elimination of some import levies, such as the freight rate of 92 dollars for petrol, 101 dollars for diesel, and 83 dollars for LPG. Financing costs would also be reduced as these transactions would be priced in cedis.
The Union argued that, given Ghana’s current financial difficulties and debt restructuring, restoring TOR to full capacity should be prioritized on the national agenda.
In a nutshell, the GTPCWU is calling for the revitalization of the Tema Oil Refinery’s operations to reduce Ghana’s petroleum product imports and save the country billions of dollars each year. Despite setbacks in their planned picketing and activities, TOR workers plan to engage in a series of industrial actions between May 2 and 5 to demand change.