Energy Ministry told not to approve Anadarko–Total deal until all owed taxes are paid

Revenue Mobilisation – Africa (RM-Africa) is concerned about the many speculative news stories about the sale of Anadarko operations in Ghana to Total SA.

The organisation in a press release Wednesday said, it finds “the situation to be disturbing because we expect the Ministry of Energy to be fully transparent and voluntarily share with citizens, information of such significant interest to the public.”

“The Anadarko deal with Total SA deserves high national attention and prioritisation because at stake is about 24% of the Jubilee Oil Field and 17% of the Tweneboah-Enyera- Ntomme (TEN) project.”

Anonymous officials within the Ministry of Finance and the Ghana Revenue Authority estimated that gains from Anadarko’s operations in the Jubilee Field and the TEN project before the sale, amounted to about $4.4 billion; and that gains to Anadarko from the sale to Total SA is about $2.5 billion.

RM Africa noted “that the potential revenue from the transaction to the country will be great whilst any effort to aid or abet evasion will be grave for the revenue needs of the country.”

“Before the public receives full briefing and information on the transaction a member of the ruling party and a former deputy minister of energy has put out what he considers to be a conservative amount owed to the country by Anadarko – a whopping $500 million.”

Below is their press release