The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) Company Limited has dismissed claims by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) that it had sold millions of litres of contaminated fuel without due process.
NDC, through its National Communications Officer Sammy Gyamfi, alleged that the stated-owned oil storage company illegally sold about 5 million litres of the contaminated fuel to cronies and embezzled the money.
However, the Corporate Communications Director for BOST, Malik Adjei has denied the allegations, describing them as lies.
Speaking to Joy FM’s Top Story Monday, Mr Adjei indicated that contrary to NDC’s claim, 4.5 million litres out of the said contaminated fuel was being refined into petrol and diesel and will soon be on the market.
He explained that about 471,000 litres went to Zup Oil whereas some 862, 000 litres were sold to Movenpina.
However, a substantial portion of the commodity has been reprocessed.
“It is not true that 5 million litres which got contaminated at BOST have been sold, 4.5 million litres out of the 5 million litres has been sent to TOR [Tema Oil Refinery] for reprocessing.
“And as we speak today we have a substantial portion of the product still sitting in the tank having been reprocessed into diesel and petrol available to be sold as fresh products on the market,” Mr Adjei stated.
NDC’s allegations
The clarification by BOST followed allegations made by the opposition NDC that, some officials of the Akufo-Addo administration have embezzled funds related to the contamination of oil which occurred in 2017.
On Monday, the main opposition party led by its National Communications Officer, Sammy Gyamfi, launched what it described as the “Corruption Tracker Series”.
The move is supposedly an initiative to expose all the corrupt dealings of the current administration that has been deliberately ignored by the government.
NDC claimed it was starting with BOST in launching the series during which Sammy Gyamfi alleged that culprits are yet to be prosecuted as the proceeds of the sale of the contaminated fuel have not also been refunded into the state coffers.
This, according to him, indicates that “President Akufo-Addo is nibbling and promoting corruption in his government.”
However, the BOST Communications Director, Mr Adjei said NDC’s allegations were untrue since investigations were subsequently carried out to ensure that the sector was sanitized.
“The committee which was instituted by management of BOST has come out with a report and in this report, specific steps have now been outlined as to how product which got contaminated should be dealt with,” he stressed.
