The Minority in Parliament has asked government to suspend a revenue assurance contract with SML for a parliamentary probe to ascertain the details of the agreement.
An investigation by the Fourth Estate indicate the company is receiving payments for assurance work in the petroleum and mineral sector for doing no work.
Ranking Member on Parliament’s Mines and Energy Committee, John Abdulai Jinapor, has told TV3’s Duke Mensah Opoku that the House will employ the necessary processes for a full scale investigation into the agreement to fish out the dubiousness shrouding the contract.
“We will be moving processes in Parliament to make that there is full scale investigation because do not believe that there is value for money,” he said.
The former Deputy Minister of Energy under the erstwhile Mahama administration indicated that “this contract is a rip-off, this contract only ends up filling the pockets of greedy politicians [and] individuals because just a couple of weeks ago, the Mines and Energy Committee visited NPA and they made us aware that they’ve put in place enough systems to ensure that all the loopholes are safeguarded and that they’ve even hoot up with the Ghana Revenue Authority to ensure that all those appearances are catered for” making him wonder the need for said contract.
“Even more importantly, it’s turned out that the so-called 3 billion saving was nothing but a hoax. We cannot allow the taxpayer to be burdened with so much unnecessary contracts that only go a long way to fill the pockets of individuals,” he said in addition.
The Member of Parliament for Yapei Kusawgu further reiterated the caucus’s advise to the government “that immediately that contract is suspended pending the parliamentary investigation. When we go into it, we will find out that indeed all those allegations are true, we will ensure that this contract is abrogated because it doesn’t serve the interest of this country.”
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