Forced to resign BOST CEO had awarded contracts to himself – IES

t has emerged that the immediate past Chief Executive Officer for the Bulk Oil Storage and Transport (BOST) Company, George Mensah Okley was actually forced to resign last Friday because he was found to have awarded haulage contracts to his own company.

According to the Director of the Institute for Energy Security (IES) Mikdad Mohammed who made the revelation, Mr Okley had been in a struggle with some big men at the Ministry of Energy for a contract to haul fuel.

Mr. Mensah Okley tendered in his resignation to the President on Friday, August 23, 2019, after serving a little over two years at the state entity.

President Akufo Addo on Monday appointed Edwin Provencal who until his appointment was the Technical Director to the Energy Minister, John Peter Amewu as the new CEO of BOST.

Commenting on the happenings at BOST in an interview with Kasapa News, Mikdad Mohammed said, BOST has been turned into a rent-seeking ground where politicians are appointed to, to go and recoup their monies spent on party campaign activities, a situation he said is a huge cause for concern.

He added that Mr. Obley’s resignation was due to nothing more than a struggle for a priced resource of this country with the powers that be.

“Our investigation into the resignation of Mr. Okley has established that he had some disagreement with some big men at the Ministry of Energy over-allocation of haulage contracts. These big men had requested to be allocated with some contracts to lift fuel from BOST but Mr. Okley declined. Some aggrieved staff of BOST who were not happy with an action taken by Mr Okley armed with documents then proceeded and informed these same big men at the Ministry that at the time that Mr. Okley denied them the contracts, he had allocated contracts to his own company which was lifting oil from BOST to other parts of Ghana. He was then given the option to resign or be sacked and he chose to resign.”

Mikdad Mohammed added that the only way BOST would operate efficiently is to get rid of the politics there as was done in the case of GOIL Company limited.

“Goil had a similar play of politics like BOST and so whenever there’s a new President he appoints his own man there where a lot of money is made. When another President takes over he also appoints another MD until it was privatized and floated on the Stock Exchange today GOIL is one of the powerful state companies. So going forward, the political influence at BOST must be removed so that Ministers of Energy stop sending their confidants there.”