Manasseh’s praise and criticism of Akufo-Addo’s action on the SML scandal

The KPMG report, as communicated by the president, confirms the issues raised in our investigations and even reveals more damning anomalies, including laws that the contracting parties breached with impunity.

In this write-up, I point out where the president deserves praise, the false claims contained in the report (or his version of it) and what appears like a watered-down language to protect the big fishes in the scandal such as the President’s cousin and former finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, who is neck deep in the scandal.

First, I commend the President for taking an interest in the matter and ordering the audit.

I also commend the president for accepting KPMG’s recommendation to cancel the upstream petroleum audit and the mining sector audit services by SML.

The contractual fee to SML on the upstream and mining sector monitoring is worth about $90 million a year, based on the production figures in those sectors.

They did not undertake any assessment to ascertain whether those services were needed in the first place.

SML, per the contracts, was plugged into some of the most reliable revenue streams of Ghana and was entitled to a percentage of revenue in every litre of petroleum products imported and consumed in Ghana (downstream), every barrel of oil produced in Ghana (upstream) and a percentage of revenue from every ounce of Gold produced in Ghana.

Per the production and consumption figures in the sectors, SML was entitled to more than $100 million per year from this contract.

And it would be unfortunate if KPMG, indeed, made some of the comments cited in the president’s press release.

The president’s claim that SML’s downstream petroleum monitoring helped to curb underreporting and under-declaration is false.

KPMG should have watched that documentary as the starting point of its investigation and should not have used that to justify SML’s downstream contract, as contained in the president’s press release.It is also FALSE that the 2.4 billion cedis the state got from the downstream petroleum sector over the period of SML’s operation is attributed to SML.

SML has no role in that, but even if the company’s services brought us 2.4 billion cedis, did we have to pay it more than 1 billion cedis?We must demand a cancellation of the downstream petroleum contract to SML.

That is the only speculation in that report even though the report stated many times that there was no needs assessment before the contracts for the services were signed.The administrative actions taken on the contract should not absolve those who breached multiple laws and signed this shady deal from criminal consequences.

The report also shows that many laws have been broken in the SML contract.