Government admits inefficiencies of the Tema Oil Refinery but says it would have to hold onto it for strategic reasons. The Tema Oil Refinery, said to supply about 60 percent of the country’s petroleum requirements has been in the news, often for the wrong reasons. Its infamous debts have consistently become an issue that gets played up with each change of government with one regime accusing the other of presiding over the worst deterioration of the company. TOR is said to owe more than a billion dollars as at the end of 2008. The Minister of Energy Dr. Oteng-Agyei at the inauguration of the refinery’s board on Monday also pointed to major inefficiencies he said needed to be drastically reduced. But despite the inefficiencies, Dr. Oteng-Agyei believes government would have to hold on to the refinery because of its strategic importance. He however said consumers would not be made to pay for the inefficiencies of the refinery. Credit: Joy Business