Managing Director (MD) of the Bulk Oil, Storage and Transportation Company (BOST), Edwin Alfred Provencal, has been making a case for the increment of the BOST margin.
The BOST margin is a tax imposed on petroleum products used to cover the maintenance and operating cost of petroleum product depots and undertaking expansion programs at depots.
According to the BOST MD, the current rate of nine pesewas is not enough to cater for the maintenance and expansion of the company’s depots, especially taking into consideration the cedi’s depreciation in recent times.
He is calling for an increase of four pesewas to make 12 pesewas.
He noted that it was important for the BOST margin to be increased to keep the company operating their depots in parts of Ghana that have been deemed commercially unviable but necessary to keep the economy active.
“When I joined BOST, all our economic assets by economic assets I mean revenue-earning assets almost all of them were out of operation. It was only 17% that were operational when I joined BOST. As we speak today because of the increment in the BOST margin we’ve been able to bring back to life all those non-operational assets.
“One of them is the pipeline from Buipe to Bolga, another one was the barges on the Akosombo dam – all the four barges were not operational. Another one was the pipeline from Tema to Akosombo, it was out of service. We had three depots that were not operational. We were virtually down and that was the case I made,” he said.
According to Edwin Provencal, without the support of the BOST margin, the company will be forced to join private companies set up depots in areas that are commercially viable to rake up profits.
“The BOST margin it is for maintenance of the infrastructure and then expansion when need be. So when you take that BOST margin out then the signal to the company is that the next infrastructure you build make sure you build it at places where it can pay for itself because if you go and build it somewhere where there’s no demand obviously you’re not going to make your money back. So that infrastructure is what is powering the economic life of this country. And taking the BOST margin away will be suicidal,” he said.
He added that to ensure the expansion and operationalisation of BOST, the margin must be increased.
“What we need to do is that with this brilliant initiative by the government today, Gold for Oil, what we need to do is that as we drive the prices down, we find a way to put in place to increase the BOST margin a little so that we can start expanding the infrastructure.”
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