Ranking Member of Parliament’s Mines and Energy Committee, John Abdulai Jinapor, has raised concerns about the exclusion of the Minerals Commission from the contract awarded to Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML), a company that is supposed to monitor and audit the gold production sector for the government.
Mr Jinapor, also the MP for Yapei Kusawgu, emphasized the significance of involving the Minerals Commission, the government agency responsible for regulating and licensing mineral exploration and extraction in Ghana, in the contract. He asserted that the commission, with its expertise and mandate, plays a vital role in ensuring quality assurance and revenue collection in the sector.
“They are supposed to ensure that we also meet the revenue requirement, and so they have a role to play when it comes to quality assurance in respect to revenue,” he stated.
Contrary to this, the Chief Executive Officer of the Minerals Commission, Martin Kwaku Ayisi, stated that the commission “did not play any role in the award of the contract” to SML, a subsidiary of a timber company. He added that the commission has no records of losses resulting from deliberate or accidental miscalculation of revenue in the mining sector.
The contract, awarded by the Ministry of Finance and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), grants SML over $100 million annually for a five-year duration, renewable for another five years. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has suspended the contract and appointed international audit firm KPMG to conduct an audit within two weeks, following revelations by The Fourth Estate, an investigative news website.
Mr Jinapor criticized the clandestine handling of the contract, stating, “A common contract is that you want to ensure that there is value for money, that there is quality assurance in terms of revenue.” He urged Parliament to verify if the proper procedures were followed in awarding the contract and if other companies were given the opportunity to tender.
The MP underscored that the contract’s transparency and accountability raise questions about the government’s management of the country’s mineral resources.