The Managing Director of Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Edmond Kombat, clarified that private sector participation or total sale of the critical asset is not an immediate consideration of the President John Mahama-led government.
He maintains that the immediate priority of the government is not to sell TOR, but to get it fully operational again.
The refinery, over the years, has become a subject of intermittent debate over whether the government should totally offload the asset to the private sector or allow private investors to participate in the operations and the management.
But Edmond Kombat says, for now, such concerns are not on the burner of the government.
Speaking during a site visit with fellows of the Africa Extractive Media Fellowship, the managing director revealed that while there have been multiple attempts in the past to attract private investors, many of those efforts were viewed with deep suspicion by workers and stakeholders.
A History That Raised Eyebrows
According to him, previous moves toward private participation were less about strengthening the refinery and more about how the process was structured.
He narrated that the past attempts for private sector involvement were less about substance, but more about form. He suggested that the refinery had been allowed to deteriorate over time, raising concerns it could be sold off cheaply.
He therefore credited the workers and unions within the refinery for reading in-between the lines, and hence opposing the sale. The fear was not just about change, but about losing a valuable national asset at a fraction of its true worth.
“There were a number of attempts to get people to come and participate. And I think it was really not much about the substance, but it was more about the form. You know, here was deliberately run down to be sold cheaply,” he inferred.
He added, “You know, and the workers that are here are very intelligent. The unions are very committed, and they read in between the lines, because the amount of money that they were going to give this place out for, like any of us could go and get that money and come and take over this kind of asset that belongs to everybody in the country to run.”
An Asset with Unknown Value
Edmond Kombat further argued that one critical factor that makes the private participation in the refinery now economically and financially unwise is the issue of valuation.
He revealed that TOR lacked proper valuation. The last official valuation of the refinery, he disclosed, was done in 2000, which is over two decades ago.
This, he says, is an indication that the country does not really know the true value of the asset. Such a situation, he is convinced, creates a dangerous situation for any potential public-private partnership. Entering negotiations without a clear understanding of asset value puts the country at a disadvantage from the very beginning.
In response, management has now commissioned a South African firm to undertake a fresh valuation exercise, an essential step before any future investment discussions.
“The last time this refinery was valued was in 2000. Since 2000, there has not been a valuation. It’s just this year that I’ve commissioned the team to get a South African company to come and revalue it. You don’t even know the assets that you are sitting on, and you’re going into a public-private partnership. You are going to be cheated from day one,” he argued.
Why Privatization Is Not the Priority
Despite the lingering conversations around private sector involvement, Edmond Kombat made it clear that privatization is not currently at the top of the government’s agenda.
The priority, he stressed, is revival, not divestment. He maintained that bringing the refinery back to operational strength, improving efficiency, and restoring confidence are seen as more urgent than negotiating ownership structures.
Even potential investors, he noted, are not actively engaging at the moment, largely because the refinery itself must first demonstrate viability.
“A few we came to meet. I think the government is not interested in continuing, because it didn’t look sensible. A few have also come, but nobody is really paying attention for now, because the objective is to get the refinery up and running,” he noted.
The Bottomline
For now, the MD of TOR says the debate over privatization remains on the back burner. What lies ahead is a more immediate and practical challenge of bringing the Tema Oil Refinery back to life.
He says, a functioning refinery is not just an industrial asset; it is a strategic pillar for energy security, economic stability, and national development. And until that foundation is rebuilt, any talk of selling or sharing ownership may be premature.
