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The Public Affairs Manager of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Aba Lokko has denied claims that workers were paid for not working when operations were halted at the refinery. TOR has been plagued by repeated shut downs over the past few years, often due to unavailable crude. A couple of years ago, the refinery shut down again and some political pundits queried why government should be using the tax payer�s money to pay its workers when there was no crude to refine at the facility. �TOR has not been operated for a long time but we are paying wages; the refinery has been closed down and yet we are paying full cost recovery; that is not fair,� Energy expert, Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby once said. (http://www.dailyguideghana.com/tarzan-asks-why-tax-us-on-tors-loans-when-its-not-operating/) The facility however resumed operations in December when they managed to secure financial support from Access Bank to bring in 800, 000 barrels of crude oil from Sahara Oil. Speaking in an interview with Nana Yaw Kesse on PEACE FM, Madam Lokko stated that refining crude; �even though it is one of the core mandate� of TOR is not the only duty of its workers. According to her, despite the fact that there was no crude, workers were attending to other duties like �offering maintenance services�. She also added that, the TOR does not depend on the Consolidated Fund to pay its workers and that their salaries are from internally generated funds. �Our salary is not from the consolidated fund; we generate funds to pay ourselves and so when operations stopped, we were offering maintenance services, third party product analysis and so on; though not refinery but that brought us revenue to pay workers�I feel sad when I hear people saying the workers were being paid for not working,� she asserted.