According to MP K.T. Hammond, lawmakers go out and buy fuel just like any other Ghanaian would, and they are also struggling financially.
On Thursday, November 17, 2022, the chairman of the ad hoc parliamentary committee looking into Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, against whom the minority caucus has filed a resolution of censure, made the statement to dispel media rumors that he does not purchase petrol since he does not possess a car.
On Tuesday, Mr. Hammond said ironically: “I don’t buy fuel because I don’t have a car.
The committee co-joking chair’s remark was in response to fellow committee member Haruna Iddrisu, who had asked if he had noticed the increases in fuel prices.
After complaining about the “skewed” media coverage, Mr. Hammond reiterated on Thursday that “MPs buy petrol, we don’t have any coupons, we don’t have rebates, we don’t have anything, and we are suffering the same way every Ghanaian is suffering.”
We appreciate it, it’s been stated numerous times, we all understand what is happening, and nobody is attempting to hide from it. We are all involved in it, and how we escape it is ultimately up to us all, he continued.
Before the Public Interest Accountability Committee (PIAC) testified at the hearing, Mr. Hammond provided the explanation.
A $100 million portion of Ghana’s petroleum receipts that were placed into an account other than the petroleum holding fund, according to PIAC, violated local legislation.
According to its vice chair, Dr. Abdul Nasir Alfa Mohammed, “we studied all the laws that border around this issue and we still came to an independent view, which we stand by on any day, that those monies ought to have been put in the petroleum holding fund and not in any other account.”
Dr. Mohammed stated on November 17, 2022, that “for us, it was against the law for that money to have been deposited in any accounts, if at all.”
Under Section 2 of the PRMA, the Petroleum Holding Fund (PHF) was created as the designated public fund at the Bank of Ghana to receive and distribute petroleum earnings owed to the Republic of Ghana.
The Bank of Ghana Petroleum Holding Fund Account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York houses the PHF, which is held abroad.
The following items are included in the Petroleum Holding Fund’s gross receipts:
royalties from the sale or export of petroleum, as well as from the sale of oil and gas, surface rentals, and other petroleum-related receipts;
Receipts from the government’s direct and indirect involvement in petroleum operations;
corporate income taxes paid by petroleum businesses in the upstream and midstream
any sum payable by the national oil firm in respect of corporate income tax, royalties, dividends, or any other sum owed under Ghanaian law;
any revenue the government receives from the sale of exploration, development, and production rights, such as capital gains tax;
Additional oil entitlements as well as production and signature bonuses.
The Akufo-Addo/Bawumia-led government’s “inability or refusal” to account for more over $100 million in oil proceeds that accrued to the state coffers regarding petroleum lifting in the first quarter of 2022 was noticed in September by the minority caucus in parliament as “severe worry.”
“The decision by the current NPP government to transfer revenues accruing from approximately 944,164 bbls 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,” the caucus stated in a statement dated Thursday, September 29, 2022, signed by Mr. John Abdulai Jinapor, the ranking member of the parliament’s mines and
“We have learned that the Minister of Finance has secretly ceded the shares to an offshore company known as JOHL (a company set-up in the Cayman Islands) in a very covert and opaque manner following the acquisition of a 7% interest by the government in the Occidental (Oxy) transaction in respect of the Jubilee and TEN fields, ostensibly for GNPC in 2021,” the statement read.
According to the minority, it is “very much alarmed” that oil field revenues “are not being paid into the Petroleum Holding Fund (PHF), which has been confirmed in the 2022 semi-annual report on petroleum receipts by the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC),” which is in violation of PRMA requirements.
As if this weren’t enough, the audit also discloses that the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) failed to assess and pay capital gains tax when Anadarko sold its 7% stake in the Jubilee and TEN fields in 2021.
The minority said, “This NPP government is showing by the day that the nation’s oil riches cannot be left in their care, as the PIAC recently accused them over their incapacity to account for roughly GH2 billion of Ghana’s oil cash for the 2017, 2018, and 2019 fiscal years.
The caucus highlighted that this is “certainly another ‘Agyapa’ deal in the making and we, as a minority, will not sit aloof for this government to loot the national purse, especially at a time when the nation is trying to raise crucial funds for essential expenditures.”
The minority urged the administration and Minister of Finance to “repatriate any such illicit transfer payments back into the Petroleum Holding Fund (PHF) with immediate effect.”
The Minority will be forced to follow the required parliamentary procedures to bring the Minister of Finance before Parliament for possible censure if they don’t get their way.
Samuel Atta Akyea, the chairman of the Parliament’s Mines and Energy Committee, claimed that the $100 million in oil revenue owed to Ghana was not missing.
He said that the funds were utilized to pay off a loan that GNPC Subsidiaries had received from the ministry of finance in order to purchase a 7% stake in the TEN and Jubilee oil fields on the government’s behalf.
Therefore, in his opinion, the forward payment of the loan accepted by GNPC Subsidiaries using that amount of petroleum receipts did not hurt the state, even though administrative procedures may not have been followed in terms of depositing the money in the Petroleum Holding Fund (PHF).
On Friday, September 30, 2020, Mr. Atta Akyea said on the Class91.3FM breakfast program: “Well, I think it’s a tempest in a teacup because sometimes it seems like the money has been taken away.”
He stated that “there is a big discussion as to whether or not certain money should be lodged in the petroleum holding fund, therefore it is an interpretation and accounting.”
According to the former minister of works and housing’s cross-checks, “there was a view from the attorney general to the effect that they needn’t place the money in that account for the simple reason that there is a 7% equity acquisition in the TEN and Jubilee fields by GNPC Subsidiary and they didn’t have the money so the ministry of finance borrowed them the money so they do this acquisition; they are trying to improve the governmental stakes in these fields.”
According to Mr. Atta Akyea, “When they [GNPC Subsidiaries] obtained the loan, they were unable to pay, so they used the petroleum receipts due them to settle it. The ministry of finance grabbed the money and paid for the debt upfront.”
“The entire issue is straightforward: Just because money wasn’t deposited in the PHF doesn’t indicate it was taken or stolen. All of it is a balancing act, but when it comes to the political aspect of some money having been stolen, it leaves much to be desired,” he continued.
“If you look at it, the amount equals the 7% equity ownership that the government has bought through GNPC Subsidiary,” he stated. Let’s consider it from that angle. Therefore, how can it be a negative when someone uses their inventiveness to Ghana’s advantage and benefit?
How can it be anything to financially damage this country, he pondered, “and if the money was not so placed in the PHF but it is demonstrated that, yes, the shares have been acquired, and the shares have been paid for?”
Are we examining the substance or the form, he continued? the simple fact that the money wasn’t deposited in the account but was instead used to buy shares for Ghana, which was a good use of the money.
“My issue, with the utmost respect, is that even if administrative procedures were not followed, is there any disadvantage to Ghana when seven percent interests have been bought in the TEN and Jubilee fields,” questioned Mr. Atta Akyea, the MP for Akim Abuakwa South in the Eastern Region.
“That is the key idea here. If administrative processes weren’t followed, would the state have suffered a financial loss or would we have benefited financially because, if we’re not careful, anything can turn into propaganda and politics?
“My joy is that no money has yet been lost to the state since we have benefited,” he continued. They should be asked to pay the tax if this transfer has any tax repercussions.
Source: newsthemegh.com