TOR workers want govt to redeem pledge

The demonstrating workers at the May Day Parade in Tema

WORKERS of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) on Tuesday vent out their frustrations at government’s failure to fulfill its pledge to recapitalise the refinery as parts of its strategies to resuscitate the company’s operations.

The workers, who thronged the Greater Accra Regional May Day celebrations at Tema in their numbers, had also called for an immediate dissolution of the company’s Board of Directors (BOT).

Carrying placards with inscriptions, “TOR needs a working capital to survive”, “Woyome May Day”, “dissolve the gargantuan chopping board”, “TOR’s board is a strain of its operations,” We need some Woyome money to resuscitate TOR”, “why no crude oil at TOR, when the Jubilee fields are producing,” “is the Jubilee fields not for Ghana?”, “Allow TOR to continuously to refine”, “MOE; let transparency rule in the oil industry”, “where is the $200 million you promised, Mr President” amongst others.

Amid singing and chanting, the workers resolved to embark on an industrial unrest to press home their demands.

They also described Tuesday’s start up of the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) plant, which has been inactive following a shutdown for a month ago, as a result of the unavailability of crude oil for production as politically motivated, meant to divert attention from the core challenges at stake.

According to the local union, the refinery’s board had not played any useful role in the management of the company’s operations since they assumed office some three years ago.

The CDU and the Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracker (RFCC) were shutdown simultaneously on March 11, this year, making the shutdown three in a row, since the first quarter of 2012.

The vice chairman of the Senior Staff Workers Union, Mr Daniel Fugar, told the Daily Graphic that the union was of the view that there is disparity between the board’s policy direction and that of management.

 “That, we believe, was affecting coordination between the two, leading to the strings of failures and setbacks, the refinery have suffered in its operations,” Mr Fugar said.

The RFCC, he said, is yet to come on stream, as the CDU is yet to begin processing the crude oil.

According to him, the company has since January this year conducted three shutdowns, with the latest start up being the third in a row within the same period, due to the same reason of unavailability of crude oil.

He queried why board members should still be receiving allowances when the core business they have been mandated to provide policy direction to ensure its functionality was in a state of coma, awaiting death.

The refinery’s management, which began a process to secure letters of credit (LCs) in March this year, for some 650, 000 barrels of crude oil, which was being held in its storage facilities for Sahara Oil, were only able to raise the money as of yesterday (Monday).

Uncertainty, however, hangs on an additional 600, 000 barrels, currently on board TOR’s Nippon Princess vessel at the Tema Port, and workers believe the plants might be shutdown for the fourth time should management fail to secure additional LCs to deliver the crude oil.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, Thur May 3, 2012

What will save Ghana’s Textile Industry?

GHANA’S once vibrant textile industry has gradually joined the league of other countries in the sub-region, such as Nigeria with collapsed textile and garment manufacturing sectors.

  

From over 20 textile firms that employed more than 25,000 people in the last two decades, the country now has only four textile factories employing less than 3,000 Ghanaians.

The country’s once thriving textile market is now flooded with Chinese substandard textile products, therefore surging the unemployment rate.

The situation seems to be further deteriorating with the four major textile companies currently in operation now employing some 2,961 people.

Inconsistent government policies over the years, industry players say, have contributed largely to the continuous decline in the sector. 

Currently, the four major companies that are surviving the turbulence in the sector are the Akosombo Textile Limited (ATL), Textyl Ghana Limited (GTP), and Printex; with Ghana Textile Manufacturing Company (GTMC) at an ailing stage struggling between life and death.

The sector, which is predominantly cotton-based, has seen cotton production on small scale, while the production of man-made fibres is also undertaken on a small scale. 

The Ghana Cotton Company Limited (GCCL), which is one of the major sources of raw material to the textiles industry in Ghana,  is on  the verge of  collapse.

Available statistics indicate that the country’s total industry output was pecked at 129 million yards in 1977, with a capacity utilisation rate of about 60 per cent.

That, it said, made GTP to maintain the lead in the industry with an annual production of 30.7 million yards.

This was followed by GTMC, ATL, and Printex with production levels of 15 million, 13 million and 6 million yards, respectively, within the same period. 

Unfortunately, however, the total industry output, the statistics said, declined from 129 million to 46 million yards in 1995 but recovered to 65 million yards in 2005.

According to the General Secretary of the Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Union (TEGLEU), Mr Abraham Koomson, cheap imports, particularly from China, have forced the companies to shut down their spinning and weaving departments, while hundreds of workers employed in those units have been made redundant.

“The irony of the situation is that, while this cheap imports flood the Ghanaian market, the production companies also steal and imitate patents and trademarks of the local companies, which are often embossed to make them look like they were manufactured and woven here in Ghana,” Mr Koomson said. 

For instance, one can easily come across a Chinese fabric with a GTP, Printex or ATL name and logo and therefore making it  hot commodity on the market, due to their relatively cheaper  price,” Mr Koomson said.

The imitated fabrics, according to the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), are often manufactured using some 28 chemicals banned in textile production, thereby making the fabric fade easily once it is washed. 

The surviving textile companies, he said, now “simply import the processed cotton, colour it and print it”. 

That, Mr Koomson said, was in relation to the fact that the private person’s essence of doing business is to make profit and not to create jobs for people. 

A task force set up in 2005 comprising representatives of the security agencies, the then Ghana Standards Board, the local manufacturers and the trades unions to conduct periodic checks at the points of sale of smuggled products was subsequently put in place with a view to arresting culprits and confiscating goods smuggled into the country.

The task force has, however, witnessed various setbacks in their operations, with persistent resistance on the part of the traders, who sometimes endanger the lives of the group.

The disregard for law and order has become the order of the day, while security personnel detailed to protect and ensure compliance in regulations sometimes compromise their stands for material gain.

The Ministry of Trade has as well looked on aloof, while people arrested for engaging in smuggling are left off the hook, as a result of over-politicisation of arrest of culprits.

Mr Koomson also blamed the country’s judiciary system for emboldening the smugglers.

A new approach of confiscating and burning seized smuggled textiles has also received stiff opposition from members of the public.

The irony is that despite the seizure and destruction of confiscated fabrics, the industry still remains uncompetitive, which is the evidence of failed interventions made by the government and stakeholders.

To what extent could acts of indiscipline that tend to deprive the state of revenue for job creation and development be tolerated?

Is complicity on the part of officials and those in charge of enforcement further lead to a decline of the sector?

Stakeholder bodies and industry regulators should do proper introspection with the hope of resuscitating the textile industry; this could reduce unemployment.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, April 30, 2012

NDC condemns politics of ethnicity by NPP

THE National Democratic Congress has condemned what it describes as politics of ethnicity by the opposition New Patriotic Party.

According to the NDC, recent comments by leading members of the NPP, rallying the youth of that party to resort to the use of pestles, stones and guns, coupled with the latest rampage resulting from fall outs of Mr Kennedy Agyepong’s arrest clearly points to the implementation of an orchestrated and well rehearsed agenda, meant to throw the nation into chaos.

The NDC’s General Secretary, Mr Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah, at a press conference in Accra, yesterday, on the recent political upheavals in the country, indicated that the NPP chairman, Mr Jake Obetsebi Lamptey, justified violent clashes in Cote d’Ivoire by drawing similarities between what he described as the suppressions of Akans, therefore urging them to revolt against government.

He said that  the NDC was of the opinion that the NPP was looking for triggers during the biometric voters registration exercise to unleash terror they had planned on innocent people. 

The NDC General Secretary said where those triggers don’t exists, the NPP would seek to manufacture same with the active connivance of media houses that shared in their agenda.

According to Mr Nketiah, the NDC was dismayed by attempts by some religious leaders and civil society groups to subtly justify Kennedy Agyepong’s declaration of war and the call for ethnic genocide by linking it with the incident at Odododiodio.

Equally appalling, he said, was the response of the NPP in the Kennedy Agyepong issue.

“On the one hand, here was the NPP leadership caving under the pressure of public opinion and issuing a statement dissociating themselves from the Mr Agyepong’s statement, and yet organising a hero’s welcome for him when he was granted bail,” Mr Asiedu Nketiah pointed out.

Furthermore, he described as absurd when NPP members who claimed they believed in the rule of law came out to applaud a District Commander of Police in the Ashanti Region who issued a shoot and kill order directed towards NDC accredited monitoring agents in that region.

He said the unfortunate incidents in Odododiodio and Kumasi notwithstanding, this year’s registration process had so far seen much improvement in terms of security breaches over the 2008 exercise, saying, “those who care for the truth could check the facts for themselves.”

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, April 26, 2012

Let’s learn from failures of STX - CPP

THE Convention People’s Party is urging the government to ensure that it capitalises on the failure of the STX housing project to reorganise and provide housing units to arrest the growing housing deficit in the country.

According to the CPP, the project’s failure brings to the fore a number of pertinent issues concerning the governance of the country, especially the use of indigenous manpower and expertise in the execution of projects.

The party indicated that due to the government’s admission of the project’s failure, the construction of houses by individuals, governments and developers ought to be well regulated and integrated into a masterplan for all fixed infrastructure such as roads, power generation/distribution systems.

A statement issued in Accra by the CPP’s Shadow Minister for Housing, Mr John T. Abebrese, indicated that situations such as the STX Project have  retarded the forward march of the country and its self-esteem.

It said that over-reliance  on foreign support and assistance in the implementation of ideas and projects by past governments  were in sharp contrast to the  “Ghanaian-Consciousness” of being able to manage our own affairs, which the CPP had persistently tried to instil among citizenry.

“In a clear demonstration of the belief in the ability and capability of the Ghanaian worker, CPP turned an otherwise unknown village called Tema into a residential paradise for workers and their families, virtually overnight with local expertise, manpower and a heavy dose of the “can-do” attitude”, it said.

 It said took the then CPP government a little over five years to construct Tema Communities One to 10, provide families with 18,000 decent homes using local expertise, manpower and management.

It said that whereas the STX would essentially have been developing someone else’s market share profits in the area of steel, cement, glass, aluminium, tiles, plastics and other housing materials, thereby exporting Ghanaian jobs, there was the need to learn the act of self-belief; discipline and nationalism which have helped develop Korea into a formidable nation.  

“We have not grown the institutions that would enable us develop our housing industry, and that is a mark of failure on the part of successive governments that have relegated such issues into the background,” Mr Abebrese lamented.

The statement further said that Ghana’s housing challenge had remained immense, hence the need to develop an appropriate body of knowledge that would facilitate the delivery in line with efforts to address the 1.5 million housing deficit.

That, it added, must be done with the active participation by the State in key areas, as has been done in other countries.

It also said that affordable housing could be provided only if the State takes advantage of economies of scale in land management, bulk construction materials and credit (banking or financial) for real estate developers, among others.  

“No country in the world has overcome its housing challenge without a strong intervention from the State,”the statement indicated.

Citing the example of the United States, it said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were established during the New Deal era and remained government-sponsored entities until recently, held over $5 trillion of asset-backed guarantees.

It also said that the STX fiasco, the latest in a string of disappointments that the good people of this country have been made to suffer at the hands of past governments, should make the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government and successive ones ensure that Ghana  returns to the era of self-reliance where the Ghanaian worker was motivated and encouraged to develop that sense of self-confidence and that “can-do” spirit.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, April 17, 2012

TOR shuts down two production units

Part of the RFCC Plant

THE Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has shut down its two production units, causing sporadic shortage of fuel at certain stations in Accra and its environs.

The Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracking (RFCC) Unit and the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) were shut down simultaneously on March 11, this year, following crude oil shortage.

A process began a month ago by the management of the refinery to secure letters of credit (LCs) to take delivery of some 650,000 barrels of crude oil it imported into the country through Sahara Oil has hit a snag.

The crude oil, estimated to cost $70 million, if delivered, would have lasted for a maximum of three weeks if the refinery is at its maximum production capacity.

The nature of the LCs implies that the TOR management had to engage more than one bank in negotiations following interest rate variations.

The depreciation of the local currency has affected the financial stability of bulk distributing companies (BDCs) licensed to import finished petroleum products into the country.

The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) Company is also said to have recently diverted its operations into distribution.

An official of one of the BDCs who spoke to the Daily Graphic on condition of anonymity indicated that although the BDCs had imported enough petroleum products into the market, the new position taken by BOST, could equally be blamed for the shortage.

According to him, products imported by the BDCs and handed over to BOST were sent to the latter’s storage depot in Kumasi, while distribution trucks were made to travel long distances there to cart the products back to Accra and other areas for delivery.

“BOST is no longer prioritising its operations that will ensure fair and sustainable distribution in the system,” he lamented.

The persistent shutdown situation is, however, creating a lot of apprehension among the local union of TOR.

An official source close to the leadership of the union told the Daily Graphic that despite numerous assurances from the refinery’s management on crude oil supply, the situation was yet to improve.

According to him, the situation of shortage might become severe if the government failed to make alternative arrangements through the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) for the procurement and supply of finished petroleum products.

“Inactivity at the production units does not only go to overburden the already worse financial situation of TOR but also create unnecessary burden on the refinery’s machinery,” he said.

The union wondered why the government was still hesitant to release the $50 million it promised last year for retooling as part of its immediate strategies to recapitalise the operations of the refinery.

Already, the furnace of the CDU has also developed a mechanical fault resulting from a blockage in its tubes.

That has prevented oil flow through the furnace into the distillation column (where the separation of crude into various products takes place), thereby compounding the refinery’s challenge to function effectively.

The Public Affairs Manager of TOR, Ms Aba Lokko, confirmed a shutdown of the plants but declined further comment. 

The Energy Minister, Dr Joe Oteng-Adjei, however, told the Daily Graphic that the money had not yet been released because the government was yet to receive the report on a financial audit it commissioned TOR to do on its operations.

According to him, the initial draft report submitted by TOR necessitated the government to commission the audit.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, April 26, 2012

Ghana asked to spend on agric research, extension services

Mr Ahwoi (middle) with Ms Hewitt and Billy Williams (left)

THE Australian Prime Minister's Special Envoy, Ms Joanna Hewitt, has urged the government to make available funds for agricultural research and extension services.

According to her, volatile food prices and climate change issues were depleting the agricultural resources.

Australia, she said, had harnessed the potential of agricultural research, thereby sustaining positive economic growth of its economy.

Ghanaian officials have benefited from a range of Australian government training opportunities, with nearly 40 recipients, including some officials of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), who were awarded Australia Africa scholarships in 2012 in agreed priority areas.

Ms Hewitt made the call at a roundtable discussion with the Minister of Food and Agriculture,  Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, on the growing partnership between Australia and Ghana on agricultural productivity and food security.

She was accompanied by the Australian High Commissioner, Mr Billy Williams.

Australia is working directly with the MoFA, to strengthen the capacity of farmer-based organisations (FBOs) through enhanced extension services.

This work builds on Australia's agricultural research partnership with the West and Central Africa Council for Agricultural Research and Development, of which Ghana is a key participant.

Ms Hewitt indicated that Australia was committed to deepening her engagement with Ghana across the full spectrum of issues, including enhanced trade and commercial activity, strengthened diplomatic links and increased development assistance.

She said the positive gains of the Australian economy could be attributed to the contribution of the agriculture sector, which has become one of the government’s priority areas.

“The sector played a major role in the country’s recovery from the 2008 global economic challenge such that we did not have to fall on reserves for sustainability, and we believe this is a lesson Ghana can learn from,” Ms Hewitt said.

She stressed that the growing partnership engagement between the two countries targeted technical assistance with a focus on building capacity in agriculture, mining, governance and public policy.

Ms Hewitt further stated that in re-orienting Australia’s development focus, Africa’s engagement would adequately tackle development challenges and also address global food security.

Mr Ahwoi, who received the delegation, indicated that the decline in the agriculture sector’s contribution to Ghana’s gross domestic product (GDP) implies that the service and industrial sector was being prioritised.

According to him, oil production in the country also had the tendency of marginalising the sector greatly, thereby depriving  hundreds of people who were dependent and engaged in the sector the survival and economic wellbeing.

“The importation of basic necessities ranging from maize, yellow corn, fish and beef products, and cereals, among others, should, therefore, be a wake-up call for all to be committed to the sector’s growth,” Mr Ahwoi advised.

While lamenting at the minimal progress in the livestock sector, which has seen a lot of importation from Australia, New Zealand, and other countries, the minister also said flooding, drought and severe bush fires caused by the activities of humans were impacting negatively on the agriculture sector.

He said in spite of the FBOs being in place, little success had been achieved in that area as a result of a limited number of extension officers to provide adequate education and guidance to ensure targets were met.

Mr Ahwoi gave the assurance that capacity programmes would be put in place  to encourage farmers to have bigger organisations that could give them political bargaining powers.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, April 19, 2012

Govt challenged to make VALCO operational

AN energy consultant, Dr Goosie Tanoh, has challenged government to ensure the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) becomes fully operational.

According to him, VALCO stood the chance of potentially generating over $460 million in revenue annually, in view of the fact that aluminium was selling at $2,300 per ton on the world market.

“It is easy, therefore, to see the immediate financial gains Ghana can enjoy from a fully powered VALCO,” Dr Tanoh said.

He also threw a challenge to the government to tackle problems that had plagued the energy sector and develop realistic and systematic approaches that would solve the problems once and for all.

Dr Tanoh was speaking at the energy dialogue session on the second day of the ongoing Third Ghana Policy Fair.

The session, on the theme, “Meeting Ghana’s energy needs, current status and preparations for the future” brought together stakeholders in the power, petroleum and gas sector.

Dr Tanoh said if the company was made fully operational, it could provide  over 15,000 direct and indirect employment in the aluminium sector.

He said with the country’s population expected to increase to 29 million in 2015, demands in electricity consumption and usage were likely to swell above its expected growth rate.

Dr Tanoh was of the view that the erratic development of communities required that institutions responsible for power transmission and distribution ought to have adequate logistic capabilities to resolve power delivery problems.

“It, therefore, behoves on government to follow the example Nigeria, to make a gradual progress towards decentralisation of major government entities in the provision of power,” he said.

He said energy delivery was still fraught with disruption, while implementation of policies in that direction had also been slow.

He called for an intensified campaign to encourage investments in renewable energy by engaging independent power producers (IPPs) to partner metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs), to achieve the government’s target of integrating 10 per cent of renewable energy into the power generation sector by 2020.

The energy minister, Dr Joe Oteng Adjei, who delivered a paper on the government’s energy policy initiatives, announced that the Energy Commission has started a pilot programme on energy efficiency refrigerators.

That he said was in line with the new regulation framework geared towards ensuring that refrigerators being imported into the country complied with the new law.

He said the government had put in a place a comprehensive programme meant to make sure some 200 megawatts capacity of power was added to the national total capacity annually.

“The annual consumption growth demand of 16 per cent has spurred us to make investments in the sector to consolidate growth,” Dr Oteng Adjei said.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, Thur April 19, 2012