The government must enter a joint venture with reputable international oil companies to help revamp the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) to sustain the viability of the only state refinery in Ghana.
“There is the need for the government to look for one of the best oil refinery companies in the world and strike a win-win joint venture with them,” Dr. Chris Kpodar, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Solomon Investments Ghana Limited, has said.
Dr Kpodar, who served as Consultant for Africa and the Middle East advising governments and companies on investment, said this when answering a question on Ghana’s crude oil and the viability of TOR at a forum organised by the Ghana News Agency.
He said there was a need to harness the innovative technologies to be applied to the refining of Ghana’s crude oil instead of exporting it and importing already refined products into the country.
Dr. Kpodar, formerly of the United Nations, indicated that artificial intelligence could then be applied to the skills and knowledge to ensure that innovative technologies would be recommended over the period, even after the end of the venture.
Elaborating on the use of artificial intelligence to solve the various economic, environmental, and social issues, Dr. Kpodar, who worked with most French major multinationals, said it harnessed human senses of touching, seeing, hearing, smelling, and speaking through a computer programme.
Dr. Kpodar said Artificial Intelligence had brought tremendous improvement to all aspects of life.
He noted that Ghana and other African countries must have the will to catch up with the world on the use of artificial intelligence as it offered solution to most of the problems they faced.
He said Africans needed to learn the skills of artificial intelligence to be able to catch up with the rest of the world.
Dr. Kpodar said artificial intelligence could be applied to the management of the economy, agricultural practices, tourism, leisure, and industrialisation, and called on the government to invest in it to derive the full benefit for the development of the country.
