We 'sacked' expatriate engineers to save the country $3.5m every month - Ghana Gas

The Ghana boss said there was a concerted decision taken to train Ghanaian engineers to take over these operational roles in the organization.

We 'sacked' expatriate engineers to save the country $3.5m every month - Ghana Gas

The Ghana Gas Company Ltd has disclosed that for the past four years, it has phased out the 52 Chinese expatriate staff running its technical operations at the Atuabo plant in the Western Region.

The move according to the CEO of the company, Dr. Ben Asante, has saved the company $3.5m per month that it was paying these expatriate engineers

He revealed this when he took participants of a Gas Conference currently going on at Takoradi on a tour around the plant to familiarize them with the company’s operations.

READ ALSO:
We saved Ghana $90m in 2020 election - EC

The conference has drawn together officials from the Ministry of Energy and various relevant sector agencies and other industry players to discuss strategic ways in which Ghana’s gas resources can be maximized for the benefit of the nation.

Dr. Asante disclosed that as at March 2017, the company’s plant was fully manned by expatriate technical personnel and numbered about 50. However, a concerted decision was taken to train Ghanaian engineers to take over these operational roles, and that currently staff is fully Ghanaian, with about 50 engineers.

He also stated that there was some skepticism when the idea was initially mooted, given that there had been an accident earlier at a VRA plant, and disclosed that notwithstanding this, the initiative was pushed through.