Tema Oil Refinery’s return to profitability is only one part of its recovery story. A more consequential test is whether the company can sustain reliable financial reporting, explain the quality of its earnings and provide enough information for the public to determine whether its operational turnaround is reducing the risks accumulated during years of financial distress.
At the Government Accountability Series on October 26, 2026, Managing Director Edmond Kombat outlined reforms intended to restore financial discipline at the state-owned refinery.
These included recovering outstanding receivables, strengthening internal controls, completing outstanding audits and bringing the company’s financial reporting up to date.
The presentation suggests that management sees transparency as essential to rebuilding confidence among regulators, suppliers, creditors and other business partners.
But the accountability question extends beyond completing outstanding accounts: it is whether the information now available provides stakeholders with a reliable picture of TOR’s financial health.
Kombat said the refinery had completed audits covering seven financial years and submitted the reports to the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA).
“We have audited the financials of TOR from 2019 all the way even to 2025. And this brought the total to seven audited financial audits submitted to SIGA.”
The exercise is significant because delayed financial statements weaken the ability of shareholders and the public to track changes in liabilities, assess management performance and establish whether a company’s financial position is improving or deteriorating.
For a state-owned refinery with a history of operational and financial difficulties, up-to-date audited accounts provide a necessary foundation for decisions about debt restructuring, capital expenditure and future investment.
However, the completion of audits does not, on its own, establish that the underlying business is financially sustainable. It improves the quality of the evidence available for assessing performance, but the figures must still be examined to determine what is driving the recovery.
Audited Accounts Are A Starting Point
The presentation places considerable emphasis on the completion of TOR’s outstanding financial statements and the holding of its 18th Annual General Meeting on June 30, 2026.
The company had faced a substantial reporting backlog, with financial statements requiring attention across several years. Bringing the accounts up to date gives management and oversight institutions a clearer basis for evaluating the company’s performance over time.
The importance of this work lies partly in the decisions it can support. A refinery’s financial position is influenced by crude procurement, product sales, maintenance costs, foreign-exchange movements, outstanding receivables and obligations to suppliers and public institutions.
Without timely and comparable financial statements, it becomes difficult to distinguish temporary improvements from structural changes in the business.
The public also needs to understand whether improvements in reported earnings are accompanied by stronger cash generation, lower overdue obligations and sufficient working capital to finance continued operations.
These distinctions matter because an enterprise can report a profit while still experiencing cash-flow pressure. Accounting earnings may include non-cash items or gains that do not immediately translate into money available to purchase crude, pay suppliers or finance maintenance.
TOR’s next accountability step should therefore be to explain the relationship between its reported earnings, operating cash flow, debt obligations and the expenditure required to keep the refinery running.
The Profit Figure Needs Clear Context
During the accountability presentation, Kombat reported a positive financial result for 2025 and said TOR had returned to profitability after years of losses. The presentation, however, requires greater clarity on the classification of the reported GH¢1.24 billion profit figure.
In the presentation, the managing director described the amount as profit before tax. The distinction matters because profit before tax and profit after tax represent different stages in a company’s financial results.
The final audited statements should provide the authoritative classification and allow stakeholders to assess the result accurately.
This is not simply a technical accounting matter. When a state-owned enterprise reports a major turnaround, the precision of its financial information is central to public confidence.
The same principle applies to the factors behind the reported improvement. A clear breakdown of the contributions from refining operations, storage services, foreign-exchange movements and other financial items would help stakeholders determine how much of the improvement reflects the core business and how much may depend on conditions that could change.
Without such a breakdown, the headline result offers only a partial picture of the refinery’s financial position.
Controls Must Translate Into Better Cash Management
Kombat said management had pursued outstanding receivables and improved financial controls. These measures are relevant because a refinery’s commercial performance depends not only on producing and selling petroleum products, but also on collecting payments and managing the timing of its obligations.
Delayed collections can restrict the cash available to finance crude purchases and maintenance. Weak controls can also expose a company to losses, inaccurate reporting or poor accountability for products moving through its facilities.
For TOR, stronger financial management should be reflected in measurable indicators, including the value of receivables recovered, overdue supplier obligations addressed, operating costs tracked and cash available for essential expenditure.
The company should also disclose how its internal controls are monitored and how identified weaknesses are corrected. The objective is not merely to demonstrate that new procedures exist, but to establish whether they reduce financial and operational risks.
These measures are particularly important for a refinery seeking to sustain crude processing while rehabilitating other critical units. Without adequate working capital and reliable cash management, operational improvements may prove difficult to maintain.
Public Accountability Must Continue After The Turnaround
TOR’s audit backlog was a governance challenge, and its clearance is an important administrative achievement. But the longer-term test is whether timely reporting becomes routine rather than an exceptional exercise associated with a change in management.
Regular publication of audited statements, clear explanations of significant movements in liabilities and earnings, and consistent reporting of operational performance would allow stakeholders to evaluate the refinery on a comparable basis each year.
The same information would help government assess whether further support or restructuring is justified and whether proposed investments are backed by a credible financial position.
The accountability presentation outlines management’s efforts to strengthen financial reporting, but it does not, by itself, settle the questions surrounding TOR’s legacy liabilities, the quality of its earnings or its capacity to finance operations over the long term.
The next stage is to make the financial turnaround measurable and verifiable. The public needs to see not only that the accounts have been completed and a profit reported, but also whether the refinery is generating the cash, operational efficiency and financial resilience needed to avoid another prolonged period of distress.
Ultimately, TOR’s recovery will be more credible if its improved reporting allows the public to track progress, identify remaining weaknesses and determine whether the refinery’s financial position is becoming sustainable.
Completing the accounts is an important first step; maintaining transparency and demonstrating stronger financial performance year after year will be the more demanding test.
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