There has been a massive operational transformation at the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation, (BOST) with a huge turnaround that is seeing the company that was once swimming in debt become a profit-making venture.
BOST, the state enterprise, which recorded a profit of ¢31 million for the year 2020, the first time since 2012, is on the path of recording more profits in the 2021 operational year due to the prudent management practices, quality leadership of the Managing Director, Edwin Alfred Provencal.
Interacting with some newspaper editors in a meeting on Monday, Mr Provencal said his outfit has settled most of their debts, hinting about venturing into the business of storage of liquefied petroleum gas.
“In terms of management performance for 2020, we budgeted to make a loss of GH¢81 million, but the efforts of the staff and the board enable us make a profit of GH¢31 million”, pointed out.
Mr Edwin Provencal said the positive profit-before-tax obtained in 2020 and the estimated positive outturn implied a massive turnaround of the operational fortunes of the company.
The five-year revenue and profitability audited position of the company indicates that the strategic oil storage company recorded a GH¢632.65 million revenue in 2020, with a corresponding profit-before-tax of GH¢9.84 million.
Since the year 2020, the income-earning assets of the company have improved from 18 to 91 per cent.
He said working to overturn the loss-making position of the company into profitability had been through enhanced performance, driven by extensive operational efficiency initiatives.
He said in 2019, the company recorded GH¢521.60 million in revenue and loss-before-tax of GH¢158.48 million.
In 2018, BOST recorded revenue of GH¢263.64 million, against loss-before-tax of GH¢287.75 million.
Similarly, there were losses-before-tax of GH¢112.19 million in 2017 and GH¢533.19 million in 2016, the data indicated.
According to Mr Provencal, the strategies of good governance, transparency, staff motivation and team work is what has done the magic at BOST.
He said the judicious use of the BOST margin which is presently pegged at 7-pesewes has led to the high reduction of debts in the SOE.
He said the earnings from the BOST margin contributed to an increase in the firms IGF and led it to undertake some major initiatives and maintenance works, adding these include the replacement and addition of new loading arms, replacement of analog flow meters with digital flow meters, repair of damaged Buipe-Bolga pipeline, construction of 300 capacity BRV parking lot at the Bolgatanga depot among others.
The new BOST is on course to become the Number One fuel and logistics business in the Sub-Region.
The BOST Managing Director said the operational efficiency was driven by factors “including, but not limited to, massive repair works of our storage tanks, pipelines and marine assets, replacement of outmoded parts across the facilities of the company in the last two years, supported by improved marketing and customer service.”
The MD commended staff and management for their support in meeting the company’s vision.
He believes that staff agitations that characterised BOST over the period affected the SOE, saying that leadership has played a critical role to change the narrative.
“As a leader, one must have the right purpose to motivate the people in order to contribute to the fiscal regime of the country and build BOST into the best State-Owned Enterprise in Ghana”, he maintained.
Some management members of the company expressed great satisfaction in the management and leadership qualities of Edwin Provencal.
According to Marlick Adjei, head of communications at BOST, everything they have achieved in BOST was achieved with the same people after systems and processes were put in place to achieve their purpose.
“It is more of leadership, in organization change leadership is critical, since he came in, he drives the company to a different direction through a strategy and he brings the staff groupings along. The steps with him are really targeted at the 2024 mark,” he said.
Other leaders come and divide the front, and the company ended up not being able with a united force to push the progress of the company forward.
According to him, in-housing insurrections are a thing of the past under Edwin Provencal stressing that “Now we have a situation where everyone is on board and when we succeed, we do that together and when we fail, we take the blame together”.
Story by Adu Koranteng
