The advice follows an enquiry by the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta’s into some activities of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation(GNPC) at the TEN oil fields which was said to cost the nation about 34 million dollars in revenue.
The GNPC has since defended its transactions saying it has always provided pricing options to buyers in line with industry practice since Ghana exported its first crude oil from the Jubilee Field in 2011.
But in an interview with Citi Business News, Executive Director of the Kumasi Institute of Technology, Energy and Environment (KITE) Ghana, Ishmael Agyekumhene said the key players must be vigilant so as not to cost the country huge losses.
“We know how difficult it is for this government, money is difficult to come by. They are consistently not being able to meet their revenue target so I think in terms of its impact on the economy, If it is truly established that we underpriced and it is revenue gone down the drain, we need to tighten up or we need to ensure that subsequently, we don’t make such mistakes if indeed those mistakes have been made” he said.
Meanwhile, Executive Director at the Institute of Energy Security (IES) Kweku Anamoah Sakyi, is confident the issue will not have any negative impact on selling Ghana’s crude oil.
“I don’t think it’ll have an impact on the sale of crude, just that it will not put the country in a good light and anytime somebody will want to do business with us to list an oil, the person is coming with a perception that he can influence us to underprice it and it doesn’t speak well” he explained.
Mr. Sakyi, however, argued that it may pave way for corruption as other countries may have the perception of influencing the country to underprice.
“However, we are happy that it has been brought to the fore so that we can probe the situation, investigate, find out the factors that underpin this decision to reduce the price of crude oil as against that of Brent so that we can correct it going forward as a country” he stated. Read Full Story
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