Former BOST Managing Director dead

A former Managing Director of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transport (BOST) Company Limited, George Okley Mensah, is dead.

He died at the 37 Military Hospital where a reliable source said he passed away on Monday, June 22, 2020, after a short illness.

,Mr Okley , was reportedly on the campaign trail last week in the New Patriotic Party Parliamentary primaries, soliciting for votes on behalf of one of the aspirants, hoping to oust the incumbent and Fisheries minister, Elizabeth Afoley Quaye.

Mr Okley raised eyebrows in August 2019 when he resigned from his position as BOST MD.

His resignation was said to be in relation to the issue of contracts at BOST and some serious other challenges he was having with some key staff of the company, making his work difficult.

There were complaints about his management style.

While the reasons for Mr Okley’s resignation was not officially communicated to the workers, Graphic Online reported that one of them was in relation to contracts.

One of such contracts was the construction of a vehicle terminal at the company’s Buipe Depot in the Savannah Region.

The land grading contract sum, said to have initially been pegged at about GHc 4 million by a contractor and approved by the company’s board was said to have been renegotiated to GHc 90,000 after Mr Okley reportedly engaged a new contractor for the said land grading works.

This situation did not go down well with some people and, therefore, necessitated his resignation.

Mr Okley was appointed in June 2018 as a replacement for the then Managing Director of the BOST,  Mr Alfred Obeng Boateng, who the President sacked.

No reason was given for the dismissal.

But industry experts believe it was ‘as a result of alleged shady deals at BOST where the company was heavily criticized in 2018 for selling 5 million litres of contaminated fuel to two unlicensed companies, Movepiina and Zup Oil, which were allegedly set up few days before the sale making Ghana lose about GHc 7 million in revenue.