Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company pays the 12-year old debt of over $11 million it owes GCB Bank

The management made this payment as part of its agenda to turn around the fortunes of the loss-making entity.

The loan which BOST took from GCB in 2008 has been in arrears and attracted several penalties from the bank.

But the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company, Edwin Provencal, told Accra-based Citi FM that the GHC64 million ($11,814,515.20) credit facility, was fully settled last month.

“In 2017, when we came to power, we engaged GCB Bank, and the good news was that they waived off all penalties and other charges, etc, with the promise that they were going to stick to our payment plan. So, that is what we have been doing since 2017, and the good news is that the last bit was cleared last month January, so we have finished clearing GCB debt.”

“We are extremely excited. What this does is that it cleans our balance sheet. It contributes to our balance sheet so we can leverage it to borrow for our operations. We assure that going forward, any other facility we get, we will use a much-disciplined approach to get it,” he added.

BOST turnaround agenda

There is an agenda to bring the company back to profitability.

Mr Provencal said BOST will need S$150 million to turn around the operations of the company.

He explained that about $75 million of the funds would be used to upgrade and rehabilitate the company’s infrastructure and the other half would serve as working capital.

He said the funding would make the company economically viable and ensure the payment of dividends to the government within the next two to three years.

Mr. Provencal indicated that the source of the funds could come from an increase in the BOST Margin in the petroleum product Price Build-up, government support; or funding from Investors.

He noted that should the option of BOST margin be implemented, it would result in the immediate increase in the prices of fuel, but would in the medium-to-long term, be of great benefit to consumers as BOST’s effectiveness would reduce the price at the pumps.