The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) has said that it disagrees with the Public Interest Accountability Committee (PIAC) on the latter’s testimony given at the censure motion ad hoc committee sitting yesterday.
GNPC’s Deputy CEO in charge of Commerce and Business strategy, Mr. Joseph Dadzie, claimed that an independent company called the Jubilee Oil Holding Limited (JOHL) was set up for receiving part of dividends accrued from petroleum transactions.
By that, Mr. Dadzie meant that all proceeds from the sale of petroleum could not be transferred to the Petroleum Holding Fund (PHF), the fund PIAC mentioned that revenues from petroleum transactions ought to have been paid into.
“We disagree with what PIAC said. Honourable Chair. As it was discussed during the PIAC testimony, JOHL is a 100% subsidiary of GNPC. It’s a company set up under the company act and the constitution of JOHL is governed by the company act and for that reason 100% of the revenue cannot be paid into Petroleum Holding Fund.”
Joseph Dadzie, Dep. CEO GNPC
He noted that JOHL is governed by the company act and not by the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA). By that, he sought to establish the point that, JOHL was a separate legal entity.
According to the GNPC Deputy CEO, because JOHL has a life of its own, the disbursement of monies it collects is decided by its Directors and not GNPC.
“At the end of the day if it [JOHL] declares profit and the Directors decide that dividends must be paid, that money is paid to GNPC [and the money paid to GNPC] of course will be paid into the Petroleum Holding Fund,” he said.
Moreover, Mr. Dadzie mentioned that “as far as JOHL is concerned, the Finance Minister is not responsible for the revenues.”
He disclosed that JOHL fulfilled its tax obligations in 2021. Paying GH₵17million to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) as tax on its operations.
When asked on whether revenues where paid into an offshore account as the Minority caucus in Parliament had claimed, GNPC’s Deputy CEO first of all sought to clarify what an offshore account was.
“I think the word offshore [is misleading]; for those who are bankers [they understand that] you can even have an offshore account in Ghana. I think the word when we say offshore [makes it a bit confusing] because, the Bank of Ghana has certain categorisation of foreign currency and so what we call FCA [for example] has offshore account.”
Joseph Dadzie, Dep. CEO GNPC
In the light of the above explanation, Mr. Dadzie accepted that the revenues were paid into an account outside Ghana.
“To the extent that the question relates to receipts from the sale of crude, yes, it was paid into an account held by Ghana International Bank in London,” he revealed.
Furthermore, he mentioned that buyers of crude, pay monies directly into accounts given to them. Whether the account is the PHF or the Ghana International Bank account in London, there is no third party involved in the paying of the monies.
In essence, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta couldn’t have been directly involved in the payment of monies into any of the crude oil accounts.
The PIAC Testimony
Yesterday, at the censure motion ad hoc committee sitting, the Public Interest Accountability Committee (PIAC) claimed that about $100 million of monies accrued from the sale of Ghana’s petroleum were not paid into the Petroleum Holding Fund (PHF).
Even though the representative of PIAC, Dr. Alfa Mohammed who is Vice Chair of the committee, did not explicitly say the monies were paid into another account, he was confident they were not paid into the PHF.
For PIAC, where the monies where paid wasn’t necessary. PIAC maintained that “it was contrary to law for that money to have been deposited in any accounts, if [it was done] at all.”
Meanwhile, the Minority group in Parliament in September this year, had accused government of paying the said amount into an account offshore.
In a statement by signed by the Ranking Member on the Committee of Mines and Energy, Hon. John Abdulai Jinapor, the Minority alleged that government had transferred revenues “from about 944,164 bbls of crude lifting in the Jubilee and TEN fields to a company established in a safe haven without parliamentary approval.”
The Minority group indirectly accused the Minister of Finance of being behind the alleged circumventing of crude funds into an unknown account offshore.
READ ALSO: Censure Motion: PIAC Insists $100 million of Oil Revenues Was Not Paid Into PHF
