Minority NDC in Parliament has expressed worry over the government’s inability to account for over $100 million accruing from Ghana’s Petroleum lifting in the first quarter of 2022.
In a statement issued by the Ranking Member on the Energy and Mines Committee of Parliament, John Abdulai Jinapor said the minority caucus is alarmed that contrary to requirements of the PRMA, revenues accruing from the nation’s oil fields are not being paid into the Petroleum Holding Fund (PHF).
“We have become aware that following the acquisition of a Seven percent (7%) interest in the Occidental (Oxy) transaction in respect of the Jubilee and TEN Fields by the Government ostensibly for GNPC in 2021, the Minister of Finance has clandestinely ceded the shares to an offshore company known as JOHL (a company set-up in the Cayman Islands) in a very surreptitious and opaque manner,” the ranking member on mines and energy committee in Parliament, John Jinapor stated.
This was also captured in the 2022 semi-annual report on petroleum receipts by the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC).
The Minority are therefore asking the Minister of Finance and the government, to repatriate all such illegal transfer payments back into the Petroleum Holding Fund (PHF).
“The decision by the current NPP Government to transfer revenues accruing from about 944,164bbls of crude lifting in the Jubilee and TEN fields to a company established in a safe haven (outside Ghana) without Parliamentary approval, amounts to a gross violation of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act, 2011 (Act 815) and Public Financial Management Act (Act 921).
“Failure to comply with our ultimatum will compel the Minority to use the necessary parliamentary processes to haul the Minister of Finance to parliament for possible censure.
