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By Samuel Asamoah
The Tema Development Company has taken its revenue enforcement drive to the premises of the Tema Oil Refinery, TOR, demanding immediate action on more than ten years of unpaid ground rent.
A team led by TDC’s Managing Director, Courage Makafui Nunekpeku, visited the refinery earlier today and held a closed-door meeting with TOR’s management. TOR was formally notified that its lease expired over a decade ago, with arrears running into hundreds of thousands of cedis. TDC says the refinery must show clear commitment toward clearing the debt, especially as its operations begin to stabilize.
The TDC enforcement teams continued the second phase of their revenue mobilization exercise across the Tema Industrial Area. Ecostar and several other facilities whose owners have failed to settle outstanding payments were locked up.
Earlier in the day, BELSHAW Chemical Manufacturing Company was also locked but rushed to pay about 40 thousand cedis in arrears before its premises were reopened. Pioneer Kitchenware and some shop owners who pleaded for time to make immediate payments were given brief grace periods but warned their facilities would be closed if they failed to return with receipts.
The operation is part of TDC’s ongoing drive to recover close to half a billion cedis owed by leaseholders, tenants, and businesses within its acquisition area. The exercise, which began on October 27, is backed by the Land Act of 2020, which mandates annual ground rent payments under all lease agreements.
TDC says the enforcement will continue throughout the rest of the year and will cover all 21 major entities indebted to the company. TOR now sits at the center of the company’s latest push for full compliance.
