Scott M. K. Tsevia
The junior staff wing of the Union of Industry, Commerce and Finance Workers (UNICOF) of the Trades Union Congress at the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), is calling on CSOs, the investor community and intellectuals to stop the media war, and engage the entities that have good proposals and ideas on how to revive TOR.
The UNICOF reaction follows the media war between the senior staff of TOR and the Special Prosecutor.
A statement signed by the Chairman, Tema Oil Refinery Junior Staff Union, Scott M. K. Tsevia, disclosed, “TOR urgently needs bold and practical solutions and not what appears to be self-seeking, populist, misinformed and theoretical talk in the media anytime an issue about the company pops up.
“We are especially appealing to the leadership of the GTPCWU TOR local branch, and their national officers to stop their diabolic and deceptive activities sponsored by selfish individuals, whose objective is to collapse TOR and turn it into a tank farm for the newly built Chinese Sentuo Refinery.”
The statement continued that the GTPCWU TOR local branch, which initially represented the junior class of the workforce, has now been hijacked by a few senior staff numbering about 28 members who decided to form a senior staff wing of GTPCWU to prosecute their selfish and diabolical agenda.
“It is this group that has been sponsored by their paymaster to frustrate the effort by the Board to revive the ailing company so it will be turned into a tank farm for the Sentuo Refinery and oil trading companies,” it pointed out.
The statement disclosed that for close to a year now, the leadership of the nearly-defunct union (GTPCWU) had misled its members to believe that there were other viable alternatives to the one currently being worked on.
“This has turned out to be false. For the record, the following so-called alternatives they keep mentioning namely: Intercontinental, African Finch, Legacy Capital and Falcon Oil were rejected by the Board either because their proposals were uninspiring or their demands could not be met.
“We understand almost all of them were asking for sovereign guarantees which the Finance Ministry is not ready to provide,” it stated.
“In the case of TOR, we are aware that the agreement can be revoked within 60 days if the partner is unable to meet certain stringent conditions, including making some upfront payments. We are also aware that per the terms, TOR is free to revoke the agreement anytime it finds an alternative deal better than this one. In view of this, we find it difficult to understand the opposition,” it added.
The union, thus, emphasised that TOR is viable and can be brought back to operation with the right investment and strategic direction.
“We are confident that with the requisite financial injection, the management and staff of the refinery, have the necessary technical competence to work with the investor to retrofit and operate the refinery to deliver value to both parties and guarantee job security,” the statement stressed.
By Daniel Bampoe