Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana Gas Company Limited, Dr. Ben Asante, has disclosed that, the company’s replacement of some 52 Chinese engineers with Ghanaian engineers has resulted in the company saving $3.5 million every month.
Dr Asante made the disclosure when he took participants of a Gas Conference currently on-going at Takoradi on a tour around the plant to familiarize them with the company’s operations.
According to him, the company within the last four years, has been able to phase out Chinese expatriate staff running its technical operations at the Atuabo plant in the Western Region.
This, he attributed to a concerted decision taken to train Ghanaian engineers to take over the operational roles of the Chinese staff.
“Currently, the staff operating the company’s plant at Atuabo are all Ghanaians, they are brilliant and so far we have not had any incidents at the plant,” he stated.
Adding, “this move has saved the company about $3.5 million every month because that was what the Chinese expatriate engineers were being paid.”
According to him, there were some skepticism when the idea was initially put forward, given that there had been an accident earlier at a VRA plant which was under the care of a Ghanaian engineer, but further disclosed that notwithstanding, the initiative was pushed through.
The Ghana National Gas Company, incorporated in July 2011, is the nation’s premier gas company and is responsible for the production and prospecting of lean gas, condensate and LPG and plays a key role in the nation’s industrial sector.
Through its subterranean pipelines, the Atuabo plant supplies gas to the VRA’s Aboadze thermal plant and therefore plays a huge role in the country’s power supply system.
