Posted: Daily Guide |Wednesday, 16 March 2011
www.dailyguideghana.com
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Questions are being asked at the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) over the ownership of some 600,000 barrels of brass crude oil worth $48million supplied to Ghana last year.
Currently, three or more companies including Refinee Petroplus, Diamond Shipping Company Limited and another one are all claiming ownership of the oil and its proceeds.
DAILY GUIDE’s investigations show that one of the companies has even succeeded in imposing a court injunction on TOR.
Though the management of TOR, headed by former Managing Director (MD) of Ghamot Ghana, Ato Ampiah, is not forthcoming with details about the transaction, one Nigerian shipping company, Diamond Shipping, has alerted the police and the Bureau of National investigations (BNI) of what seems to be a well-orchestrated scam.
The original officials of Refinee Petroplus have since denied having any interests in Africa, let alone Ghana and the lady whose name was presented as their local representative here in Ghana has proved to be a worker of Sahara Energy Ghana Limited whilst the address of the company is non existent.
Mr. Ampiah and Alhaji Awud Ariff Abubakar, the Board member who sat on the committee that nominated Diamond Shipping Company for the lifting of the oil cargo, were tight-lipped on the issue when contacted on Monday.
But General Manager In-charge of Commerce at TOR, Dr Alphonse Dorcoo, however denied TOR ever dealing with Diamond shipping company and its CEO, Dr Maureen, though the company still insists it was mandated by TOR, through a letter of nomination which requested them to load the oil onto a vessel, MT VERGINA II.
Based on this, the company, through its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr Maureen Nwangwu-Iduh, began to source for the product in August 2010 and eventually succeeded in lifting the product to Ghana.
Before then, Dr Nwangwu-Iduh was said to have been contacted by one Prince Solomon to be allowed to lift the product with his vessel, MT Jacksonville, and sent her a request to enable him to load same.
Dr Nwangwu-Iduh was however said to have called to inform him that MT Vergina had already been engaged for that purpose and therefore could not strike a deal with Solomon.
But even before Dr Nwangwu-Iduh and the oil could arrive in the country for the product to be inspected and offloaded by TOR, Mr Solomon had succeeded in convincing officials of the oil refinery that the cargo on board the vessel was his.
He was then said to have conspired with an official of TOR, one William Wade and another Board Member of the company, Alhaji Awud Ariff Abubakar, to discharge the product without documentation in relation to the vessel or the cargo delivered.
Solomon was said to have subsequently attempted to sell the oil cargo to a company by name Eagle Eye Resources but it backfired.
He was later said to have called Dr Maureen Nwangwu-Iduh, claiming that Alhaji Ariff had decided to pay Refinee Petroplus, thereby recognizing them as the suppliers of the product.
Alhaji Ariff was part of the committee that nominated Diamond Shipping for the right to supply the oil cargo to TOR.
This compelled Dr Maureen Nwangwu-Iduh to cause officers at the Airport police station to arrest Solomon.
Officials of Diamond Shipping have since managed to secure a court injunction against TOR, making it impossible to make any payment through anyone or the banks to anyone else until the investigations or litigations were concluded.
Though the issue was reported to the National Security (Blue Gate), it is currently being handled by the BNI.