The Chief Executive Officer of the Tema Oil Refinery, Dr. Kwame Ampofo says his outfit is over-staffed and will take steps to reduce the number. He made this known on Time with David, a TV program on TV3 on Saturday. Dr. Ampofo said, “TOR is hugely over staffed and it currently has over 900 workers. The facility is supposed to have about 400-500 people. Some people come and get paid for doing nothing” He also lamented about the over 70 National Service Personnel which he said is just too much for such a facility. “Why do you think everybody is coming to TOR? It’s because they think TOR is “Father Christmas”. He said the current deregulation regime which is working perfectly, has freed government from borrowing money to import and manage crude oil in the country. Dr. Ampofo hinted that, plans are far advance for the building of new refineries in the country which will bring more money to the economy. He attributed most of TOR debts to transactional problems facing the refinery, as well as indebtedness by Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) to TOR. “Government introduced the Debt Recovery Levy to reduce or prevent government from subsidising crude oil in the country. 700 million Ghana Cedis of Debt Recovery Levy was collected and instead of government giving it to TOR, it was put back to the Consolidated Fund which didn’t help reduce the debt of the refinery. To make things worse, the levy is still there but it is at a very low rate now.” Dr. Ampofo added. He welcomed the production of crude oil in commercial quantities in the country saying, “We will produce and refine our own oil which will be very beneficial to the economy and the country as a whole”. Story by Aglanu Dela Ernest/Myjoyonline/Ghana