The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) believes the time has come for a review of the mandate and performance of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) after operating as the nation’s oil company for the past 10 years.
Chairman of PIAC, Noble Wadzah who justified this as a recommendation in PIAC’s 2019 half-year report said GNPC which was given over US$ 98 million representing 27 percent of petroleum revenues for the period seems to be preoccupied with non-core mandate expenditures.
This according to him is detrimental to the national oil company’s main functions.
In the past, PIAC had asked Parliament to immediately step in and put a cap on the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation’s (GNPC) Corporate Social Investment.
PIAC fears GNPC may veer off its core mandate if it continues with its current expenditure trends.
It is for this reason that PIAC has made a recommendation to Parliament and the central government to review the obligation and laws of GNPC in their report this year.
Past spending
In 2019, an internal memo sighted by Citi News showed that the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) had intended to spend about GH¢ 2 million on donations and sponsoring some public functions.
Some of the beneficiaries sighted in the memo were the First Lady’s Foundation and the Ghana Journalists Association. Another amount was also allocated for the celebration of Okyenhene’s 20th Anniversary.
The memo, dated 29th October 2019 from the Board Secretary to the Chief Executive indicated that the donations and sponsorship had been approved by the GNPC board upon a recommendation by the Brand, Communication and CSR Committee of GNPC.
Although the current budget of GNPC still comes as alarming to some organizations such as PIAC, Parliament had already slashed the initial expenditure budget of the Corporation by 80 million dollars, saying that there was no justification for some of the projects captured in the 2019 budget of the firm.
In 2018 alone, GNPC spent 28 million dollars on CSR which is more than the 25 million dollars it spent on salaries and 17 million dollars it spent on some operational activities.