Ranking Member on the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament, John Jinapor, has expressed concern over the National Petroleum Authority’s (NPA) decision to involve external entities in revenue management and assurance in the petroleum downstream sector.
Jinapor’s comments follow the NPA’s invitation to an entity for a meeting on May 23, 2024, regarding a potential contract to provide supply assurance and management systems in the petroleum downstream sector.
The meeting aims to update selected stakeholders on end-to-end primary supply assurance and management systems, with a presentation by a company named HFILED Limited.
The letter, addressed to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), the Assistant Commissioner of Petroleum, Customs Division Tema, Bulk Oil Distributors, the Association of Bankers, and others, indicates that the meeting aims to discuss providing an end-to-end primary supply assurance and management system for the petroleum downstream sector.
Mr. Jinapor has stated that the committee will not approve such a contract unless the controversies surrounding the Strategic Mobilisation Limited’s (SML) arrangement with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) are resolved.
“We will send a signal to NPA, and our message is simple – don’t try anything funny because we wouldn’t tolerate that, we wouldn’t countenance that.
“The systems currently are robust enough, if it needs tweaking, in-house can deal with that,” he said.
He said that if the NPA needed a solution, it should be a holistic solution, stressing that “this pocket of isolated attempts to sign last-minute contracts, we will resist them.”
The Ranking Member of the Mines and Energy Committee clarified that there are various issues arising, not just within the energy sector.
He mentioned that the committee visited the NPA’s head office, where they were informed that the SML contract was redundant and that their system was robust enough to provide the GRA with all necessary information. He questioned what has changed since then.
“So what has changed? All of a sudden, that robust system – are they telling us that it’s no longer robust? Tell the NPA boss that I say don’t.”
Meanwhile, the committee is set to probe into the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML) revenue assurance deal.
A KPMG report has revealed several infractions, including a lack of parliamentary and Public Procurement Authority approval, among other issues.
Mr. Jinapor stated in an interview with JoyNews that the findings from KPMG will serve as the foundation for the investigation.
“There are more revelations, very damning revelations and so we intend to do immediate engagement. We’re supposed to do it this week, but you know these issues, a lot of scandals keep coming,” he added.