Cover Up At Bost�As Board Sacks All Workers

High tension is mounting at the Bulk Oil Storage and Transport (BOST) over what the workers have described as an attempt to cover up multiple rots at the state-owned oil company as well as surreptitious moves to sack all hardworking staff. This paper has learnt that the Managing Director of the company, Kingsley Kwame Awuah-Darko with the endorsement of his board chairman Kakra Essamuah, has directed all staff from top management down to the cleaners, to re-apply for their jobs, which the workers argue, is against natural justice and the labour law. Any worker who fails to reapply will be deemed to have been sacked from the Company and there is even no guarantee that the workers would be retained if they reapply. Sources within BOST have told the paper that Mr. Awuah-Darko has employed a lot of cronies and ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) sympathisers after taking office in October 2013 and some of them have remained redundant. According to the sources, asking all the workers to reapply is just a sneaky move to keep his redundant cronies and retrench workers who have diligently served the company for the past 10 to 20 years. BOST is under the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum and all activities of the company should be sanctioned by the ministry. However, Mr. Awuah-Darko, the sources indicated, has become so powerful that he is taking decisions without recourse to the ministry and nobody is able to sanction him. This paper has gathered that the BOST MD has been untouchable because he was a key financier of President John Dramani Mahama�s 2012 campaign. The paper has also learnt that a report of a committee of inquiry set up by the Minister for Energy and Petroleum, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah to investigate allegations of impropriety at the Accra Plains and Kumasi Depots belonging to BOST has been shelved by the ministry. It is not clear if the then board chairman Alhaji Huudu Yahaya has influenced the non-release of the report as he resisted the setting up of the committee and openly came out to challenge the authority of the minister to set up the committee. This committee was however set up before Mr. Awuah-Darko took office. It was set up on June 18, 2013 following the �incessant allegations of irregularities at the aforementioned depots and to ensure optimum efficiency in the transportation of fuel products.� The committee was chaired by Mrs. Clothilde Akosua Agbenorto of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) with Ms. Dorothy Afriyie Ansah of the Ministry of Justice & Attorney General�s Department; Mr. Kweku Agyeman-Duah of the Association of Oil Marketing Companies and Mr Nii Lante Blankson of the Bureau of National Investigations as members. Other members were Mr. Erasmus Asamoah, General Manager (Production) of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR); Mr. Andrews Owusu Berfi, Chief Operating Officer, Fueltrade; Mr Ignatius Doe, Executive Secretary of the Tanker Owners Association and Mr. Kwame Boan Siriboe, Head, Petroleum Downstream of the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum. It would be recalled that Mr. Awuah-Darko had early this year signed a controversial deal and outsourced the management of BOST�s depots to TSL Logistics, a Ghanaian subsidiary of Nigerian-owned Company, without recourse to the ministry. Consequently, Minister of Energy and Petroleum Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah directed that a committee be set up to investigate the deal following complaints by Bulk Oil Distributors (BDCs) that the agreement was illegal. The decision to set up the committee was made after the Minister, his deputy, some senior officials of the Ministry, the board Chairman and the CEO of BOST and the Ghana Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors met to discuss the deal. The Chamber had petitioned the Minister to stop or reverse the decision of BOST to transfer the management of storage tanks to TSL Logistics. The committee was however shot down by the presidency, leaving the BOST MD off-the-hook. The BDCs had argued that the agreement was in �flagrant disregard of the Public Procurement Law,� since BOST did not open up the process for bidding. They equally argued that the whole deal was �illegal�, since TSL was not licenced by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to operate storage facilities as required by law. Their Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Senyo Hosi, at a news briefing told journalists that they are alarmed that while President Mahama was busy proclaiming the capability of Ghanaians his appointees were doing the opposite by promoting foreign business interests. Even the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Energy and Mines, Dr. Kwabena Donkor had to call on the Energy Minister to stop BOST from going ahead with the contract. �The Energy Minister should call BOST to order to ensure that local content conditions are fully met,� said Dr. Kwabena Donkor, the first CEO of BOST when it was incorporated in 1993 as a private Limited Liability Company with the Government of Ghana as sole shareholder. But Mr. Awuah-Darko insisted the deal was legal, arguing that outsourcing the management of the depots to TSL was one of the strategies his team had employed to redeem the company from indebtedness. According to him, there was an approval letter from the National Petroleum Authority for TSL to undertake the services in the deal -contrary to allegations that the company was not licensed for that.