Managing Director of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST), Edwin Provencal says he is hopeful that directors who hid behind certain companies/institutions to rack-up the BOST Margin will soon be fished out and their assets ceased.
According to the BODT MD, the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) is working tirelessly to ensure that all monies collected are refunded.
Addressing Journalists at a meet-the-press in Accra, he said "EOCO is still working on this because now it is an economic crime issue and I am sure hopefully, we can raise the veil and look for the Directors behind those companies and attach their assess. So that the people of Ghana can collect their monies"
Touching on a GHc60 million owed BOST by some institutions, he revealed that EOCO has managed to collect almost 10% of it.
"Out of the 60 million, EOCO has collected almost 10% of it. The thing about those people who owe you BOST Margin, it's like VAT. The OMCs are supposed to collect the money on your behalf because that is where the customer pays"
"Lots of them collect the money, use it for their personal interest and then the company dies"
Mr. Provencal described the unfortunate incident as a challenge facing BOST.
"So a lot of the companies, you can't find them even though they came in as OMCs, they operated for a while, rack-up the BOST Margin and they vanish"
Revealing the status of BOST as at 2017, Mr. Provencal revealed that his administration inherited a trade liabilities of $624 Million USD, Legacy Loans of GHc416 Million, BDC Claims of $37 Million USD and CAPEX Liability of $109 Million USD.
Responding to how BOST deals with contaminated fuel, he said "The last bit of the contamination that we have to deal with is our products in trucks"
"The product ownership moves BOST to tye Truck owners .The Truck owners have to move from one place to another before they hand it over to BOST again"
"Now the challenges we have is that, sometimes during that journey, another can happen"
"So we are leveraging technology and we are putting in place mini laboratories in the various depots to identify the contaminated through the journey and once that is done, tye drivers will be held accountable and handed over to the police among others"
He stressed that the contamination within BOST is not going to happen again adding the depots have now been outsourced to a third party.
"That third party, I am not sure it is in its interest to supervise these contamination because they will pay heavily for that and since they came, TSL came to BOST, in 2015, I can tell you for a fact that we haven't had any product loss or any of these contaminations"
He was confident that since his outfit has grasp on the contamination, such unfortunate circumstances will not reoccur.
Mr. Provencal commended management, board and staff of BOST for their tremendous efforts and successes chalked.
Story by: Joshua Kwabena Smith