The Minority in Parliament has chastised the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) for spending some $7.5m on residential facilities in a transaction they consider as abnormal.
[contextly_sidebar id=”IfcrFAgguXVunyZahKimdNMtFM0HAc6F”]Citi News on Tuesday sighted some internal GNPC memos signed by its Chief Executive Officer, Dr. K.K. Sarpong, authorizing the transfer of funds to a company he once worked for in 2017, Global Haulage Company Limited for the residential facilities.
According to the minority, K.K. Sarpong put himself in a conflict of interest position and should have publicly declared his personal interest in the company that received the payment.
The Member of Parliament for Bongo constituency, Edward Bawa, who is a former consultant to the GNPC told Citi News that the GNPC boss erred by not seeking parliamentary approval for the spending.
While admitting that the company’s procurement activity was quite high, he said the GNPC could have established a procurement entity to supervise its activities.
“They started spending money when Parliament has not approved of it. Technically it is wrong because per the law, we have to approve of the expenditure before you spend it. Secondly, this particular process did not go through the normal process of procurement. I do understand that for GNPC, because of the fact that sometimes they have very high procurement activity, they have always indicated that their threshold for not going into the tender process is because of the fact that for them every small expenditure is in the millions of dollars,” he said.
Citi News checks reveal that Dr. Sarpong directed the Chief Finance Officer of GNPC to make the payment, saying “I am by this memo authorizing you to effect the payment to Global Haulage Company Ltd, the vendor instantly as per their invoice attached.”
He also admitted in the memo that the directive was an “unusual step.”
An audit of the transaction was expected to be performed after January 8, 2018.
The underlying sale and purchase agreement with the seller had been effected before the said memo.
Dr. Sarpong concluded the memo by saying “I wish to indicate that I, the Chief Executive have taken full responsibility for this transaction. Please pay without hesitation.”
The property, according to the documents, is located at Chapel Hills in Takoradi.
Dr. Sarpong denies wrongdoing
But Dr. Sarpong has insisted that the deal was transparent.
In an interview on Accra-based Joy FM he said, “I had been connected with Global Haulage, but I must tell you that the transaction is above board, all valuation reports by relevant agencies went through the board of directors [and] the board of directors’ sub-committee on properties looked at it and recommended [its suitability] to the board,” he said.
He also said he was not involved in negotiations for the deal because of the conflict of interest concerns.
“Because of my experience [and] knowing that I have been related to Global Haulage, I never took part in the negotiations, and even the vendors themselves found it very difficult getting me to help them with the transaction,” the GNPC CEO stated.
Royal Bank ties
Unconfirmed reports indicated that proceeds from the sale of the property, which is said to house between 18 and 21 apartments, were injected into the struggling Royal Bank before its collapse.
However, Dr. Sarpong said he saw nothing wrong with this.
“If they [Global Haulage] took the money and they were injecting it into Royal Bank then so be it, but there will be nothing wrong with it because they’ve sold their property properly to us [GNPC].”
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By: Jonas Nyabor/citinewsroom.com/Ghana