Politics

Alex Mould accuses govt of violating law on oil revenue accounting

Alex Mould, the former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), has accused the government of incorrect accounting in relation to the nation’s share of oil revenue from the Sankofa Gye Nyame (SGN) oil field.

“The crude oil given to EniGhana as payment for the advance they made on behalf of GNPC to cover its 5 per cent development cost, has not been passed through the Petroleum Holding Fund (PHF) as mandated in the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA).

“Payments for Jubilee and Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) oil fields were correctly passed through the PHF but have not been done for SGN, if true, is violation of the law as stipulated by the PRMA. In each oil field, the government has two distinct ‘equity Interests’, a Carried Interest and a Paid-in Participation Interest,” Mr Mould noted in a statement. 

It said the Carried Interest where the government is “Carried”, pays no exploration/appraisal or development cost to bring the field to production, only contributes to the field’s operating and production costs once the field is in production,

 Paid-in Participation Interest, having opted to increase its equity after Contractor Group declares Commerciality, pays for only development cost to bring the field to production.  

The statement said once the field is in production, the government contributed to the field’s operating and production costs, for both Jubilee and TEN, it agreed to repay the Contractor Group which financed development costs for GNPC Participating Interest, the agreement was to use 40 per cent of revenue from sale of crude oil of combined Carried and Participating Interests equity takes, excludes Royalties paid directly to the government.

“Strangely, agreement for SGN oil field does not specify percentage of our revenue from oil sales will be used to repay amount owed SGN Partners which funded development costs for Participating Interest on behalf of GNPC.

“The revenue from sale is not being paid into PHF as per the PRMA before being disbursed to GNPC to repay debt incurred by SGN Partners for development cost of the field,” the statement said and wondered why the government was not following the PRMA rules with regards to revenue from selling shares of oil to repay monies advanced for development cost of SGN field -myjoyonline.com

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