Five Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are seeking the recovery of over GH₵1 billion paid to Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML).
Earlier this year, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo tasked audit firm KPMG to audit the transaction between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and SML.
This contract was aimed at enhancing revenue assurance in the downstream petroleum sector, upstream petroleum production, and the minerals and metals resources value chain.
The KPMG report revealed that the GRA did not obtain the necessary approvals from the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) or Parliament for the contract.
In response to the report’s findings, the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), Human Rights and Governance Centre, and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) have filed a lawsuit against the government.
Executive Director of MFWA, Sulemana Braimah, stated in an interview with the media on Monday that “I think that if anything at all we would say that it’s based on some of the findings of the KPMG report that required that actions be taken to ensure that what is due the state comes back to the state.”
“It has nothing to do with being satisfied with the KPMG report. If anything at all that gave us a little more into what we thought were the wrong things that were done in relation to the contract.”
“We are a country that is supposed to be governed by law and laws are not made for the beauty of having laws. Laws are made so that things will be done properly. Laws are made so that there will be equity, there will be fairness, there will be justness and there be accountability and in our view, the award of the SML contract and the delivery of the contract had in our view a number of things that are at variance with the laws of our land particularly and specifically relating to public procurement, laws regarding parliamentary oversight and so on.”
“Essentially we are saying if these laws were breached the right things must be done. If we’ve lost money as a result of these breaches, the money must be retrieved and sent back to the state. So essentially, we are saying the laws were not followed, monies have been paid and those monies must be brought back to the state,” he stated.
