Torentco-TOR deal shady, OSP will unravel a lot if probed

The General Transport, Petroleum, and Chemical Workers Union of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) Ghana has insisted that the lease agreement between the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) and Torentco Asset Management Limited is shady.

It stated that it is for that reason it is pleased that the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has directed the management of TOR to suspend its proposed partnership agreement with Tema Energy and Processing Limited (TEPL).

The union also believes the OSP will unravel a lot if the deal is probed.

On Monday, November 20, the General Transport, Petroleum, and Chemical Workers Union of the TUC Ghana petitioned the Special Prosecutor to investigate the lease agreement between TOR and Torentco Asset Management Limited.

In the petition, the Workers Union said, “We wish to request that your highly esteemed office investigate and intervene in the ongoing lease arrangement of Tema Oil Refinery to Torentco Asset Management Limited, now Tema Energy and Processing Limited, with the same individuals involved.”

The Transport Workers Union believes “the actions of the individuals behind Tema Energy and Processing Limited seek to induce workers of TOR with 20% of its shares through misrepresentation of workers in an entity by the name ‘TOR Workers Charity Trust’ that never existed nor heard of at TOR, apart from the five individual directors and direct beneficiaries of this trust.”

Speaking in an interview on Eyewitness News on Citi FM on Thursday, the National Chairman of the Workers Union stressed that “How do you work in a company like TOR and go and form a company to take shares in the company? This is clearly corruption and a conflict of interest. You can’t do that. It is morally unacceptable. The evidence is clear. They have gone to register a company to come and take over companies that they work with.”

He added, “We believe that when the OSP goes in, he will unravel a lot of things because everything is shrouded in secrecy.”