Six MDs In Eight Years Contributed To TOR’s Decline – Edmond Kombat

Story By: Deborah Adorsu

The Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Edmond Kombat, says frequent changes in leadership under the former Akufo-Addo administration disrupted management continuity and contributed to the decline of the state-owned refinery.

Speaking in an interview, Mr Kombat said TOR had six Managing Directors and an Interim Management Committee (IMC) over the eight-year period.

Mr Kombat argued that TOR’s complex technical and financial challenges required stable leadership and sufficient time for management decisions to deliver results.

The short tenures, he said, made it difficult for successive leaders to implement and sustain long-term decisions.

He also cited the absence of independently audited financial statements for several years as another major factor that complicated management.

Mr Kombat disclosed that the current management has since worked with the Ghana Audit Service to audit the refinery’s accounts for the seven-year period and organised an Annual General Meeting to consider accounts covering 2017 to 2025.

He also revealed that some officials at the Energy Ministry during the previous administration did not believe TOR was viable, and had considered converting the facility into a tank farm or handing it over for alternative use.

Despite the challenges, Mr Kombat maintained that TOR remains a strategic national asset, pointing to its storage capacity of one million metric tonnes — about three times that of BOST — and its refining capacity of 45,000 barrels per stream day.