TOR debt reaches ¢1.85b as of April 30

The much talked about debt of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has reached ¢1.85 billion ending April this year.

This was after ¢1.1 billion of it was settled by the company in a move to clear the energy sector debt, ESLA PLC.

The TOR debt is said to have come about as a result of Refinery’s inability in past to pay back some borrowing from banks to finance their operations.

This was as a result of commercial losses and the inability in the past to sell crude oil processed to help pay back some of these loans.

The development resulted in laws being passed in 2003 that would permit the application of levies on the price build-up of Diesel and Petrol to help clear these debts.

However, there have been questions about how these taxes have been administered and whether the time has come to remove these levies.

This is because some have argued that petroleum prices are high, just because there are too many taxes on each litre of products sold.

It has been argued that the only way out is to remove some of the levies on the price build-up.

But judging from the latest statement from the Tema Oil Refinery suggest, there is still a lot of debts to be cleared, when it comes to the TOR debt.

The refinery in the statement, also argued that some measures being instituted by the finance and energy ministry would help deal with this challenge.