Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distribution (CBOD), Dr Patrick Kwaku Ofori, has debunked claims that the current structure of the Gold for Oil policy by government will disrupt the operations of its members.

According to him, bulk oil distributors have not threatened to withdraw their licenses due to the current structure of programme which doesn’t bode well for their operations. He revealed that there is an internal structure within the Chamber for resolving the issues members have in the conduct of business.

“I don’t think the Bulk Oil Distributors are saying that the current structure will disrupt their operations, that is why they are threatening… That statement to the best of my knowledge is not coming from us and then also not our members.
“We’ve created an enabling environment and an engagement program currently going on that our members are making inputs into the structure will ensure that we can help use the existing structure to achieve in the market, the key potential risk that we face which is FX liquidity, its availability and its impact on the pricing. “
Dr Patrick Kwaku Ofori

Dr Ofori stated that if the program is to achieve the needed rollout, all members of the Chamber must be able to roll onto the programme. He indicated that the main and fundamental problem which members faced necessitated the Bank of Ghana stepped in with forex option. Owing to this, he noted that the Chamber’s major risk, which is the forex availability, can easily be dealt with.

“So, currently, I think it’s still an ongoing process. What came in was not the quantity that we all expected, and I think we could not even supply 15-20% of the market. Those are the reservations some of our members have and the modalities that we are still jaw-jawing with key stakeholders leading the transaction to ensure that all other reservations and inputs are taken into consideration to ensure a smooth running of the operation. “
Dr Patrick Kwaku Ofori

Structure of Gold for Oil programme

Dr Ofori emphasized that none of CBOD’s members have threatened not to pay their license fees, since they are aware that to even participate and operate within the market, they will first be required to pay their license fees and subsequently given the legal mandate to conduct business.

Commenting on whether he is satisfied with the structure of the programme, the CBOD CEO highlighted that to some extent he is satisfied because with the existing structure, once members figure out how they want to operationalize it, whereby all the “forex requirements or proceeds from the gold exports” or a percentage is allocated to the BDCs or importation of fine products into the country, that automatically will help the Chamber deal with the challenge that has bedeviled the downstream sector.

Dr Ofori stated that once that is addressed, he can confidently say that members “are in business [because] that is the main issue” the Chamber wants to tackle.

“But as the structure is, we’re still engaging to ensure that we can create, if not a perfect model, one that seeks to accommodate the private sector and that is private sector requirement for forex and the same FX rate that is guaranteed to BOST is also guaranteed to our members to ensure that they are also able to participate and participate competitively.”
Dr Patrick Kwaku Ofori

Dr Ofori expressed that there are still a chunk of the market that BDCs can operate in but the main issue has to do with whether forex can be guaranteed. He underscored that once this is done, it will make BDCs competitive and also help the policy framers to achieve the overall goal of ensuring that prices at the pumps are at a good price.

“It is not that our members are not interested in participating. BOST is not selling to anybody, it’s our members who have queued up to buy from BOST. But what they want to know is, what are the terms and models…?”
Dr Patrick Kwaku Ofori