The Ad Hoc Committee probing the motion of Censure moved against the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta has stated that evidence adduced with respect to ground 3 of the motion, contracted the claim. Therefore, the committee did not let the Minister for Finance respond to that ground.
“On account of the evidence adduced, which kind of contradicted the evidence that was led by the proponents of the motion, the committee has taken the decision that you will not be called upon to deal with this matter,” Co-chair Ayine told the minister.
The Minority, in its ground three of the seven grounds, had alleged an illegal payment of oil revenues in offshore accounts in violation of Article 176 of the 1992 Constitution.
The proponents relied on the 2021 report by the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) which said in parts that $100 million of petroleum lifting revenue was not paid in the Petroleum Hold Fund.
The Committee invited officials of PIAC to speak to the evidence the proponents were relaying on, and also invited the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation to hear its side.
CO-CHAIR SPEAKS
Addressing the person of interest in the censure motion, the Minister for Finance, one of the co-chairs of the committee, Dominic Ayine, told Ken Ofori-Atta not to respond to the issue relating to the oil revenue.
He explained that PIAC said they could not confirm that fact and the GNPC could not corroborate the evidence supporting motion.
He said, “When the evidence was adduced, there was a specific piece of evidence relating to the payment of $100 million into an offshore account. And the documentary evidence that was tendered was the report of PIAC. Because we wanted the evidence corroborated, we invited PIAC to appear before us yesterday.
He continued that “They did appear, a specific question was put to them with respect to whether or not they are aware that you in particular instructed that the money should be transferred into an offshore account. PIAC did say that they could not confirm that fact.
“Subsequently the GNPC was called upon in respect of that issue because these were proceeds of the liftings of oil by Jubilee Holdings, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of GNPC. And so, we called upon the GNPC to corroborate or disconfirm the evidence which was led with respect to this matter by the proponents of the motion.
“And GNPC describes the transactions as follows; that the monies were paid by Tullow Ghana Limited and they were paid to Jubilee Holdings into an account that is held by Jubilee Oil Holdings (JOHL) with Ghana International Bank in London. They also did not say anything to the effect that you gave any instructions with respect to that payment.”
KEN NOT RESPONSIBLE -GNPC
When the GNPC appeared before the committee, they were asked specifically in terms of the allegations made, relating to the Minister for Finance.
The GNPC stated that as far as JOHL is concerned, “the Finance Minister is not responsible for their revenues.”
According to the GNPC, payment was indeed made into an account in London, but that was done by the buyer of the crude, which was Tullow Ghana.
