You have no justification for diverting money to an offshore account – Mahama tells Ken Ofori-Atta
Former President John Dramani Mahama has added his voice to the call by the Minority in Parliament demanding the return of the money which is alleged to be illegally paid from petroleum revenue into an unknown offshore account by the Finance minister, Ken Offori Atta.
The Minority has alleged that a whooping sum of $100 million has been paid into an untraceable offshore account by the ruling government. Against this backdrop, former President Mahama said “News that some $100 million has been diverted from petroleum funds for unapproved expenditure is most disconcerting”.
Mr explained that “Section 3 of the PRMA (Act 815) is explicit that all Petroleum revenue due the Republic derived from whatever source shall be assessed, collected and accounted for by the Ghana Revenue Authority. And that “Section (15) of the Petroleum Exploration and Production Act (Act 919), is also clear that “Any borrowing exceeding the cedi equivalent of thirty million United States Dollars for the purpose of exploration, development and production shall be approved by Parliament and shall be in consonance with the Petroleum Revenue Management Act”.
He stated that there can be no justification for diverting revenues accruing from the nation’s share of petroleum resources into any other account aside from the Petroleum Holdings Fund(PHF).
Mr Mahama finally called on the government, most particularly the Finance Minister to repatriate the money saying “the Minister for Finance must as a matter of urgency repatriate all such illegal payments back into the PHF without delay as there is no record to confirm parliamentary approval on any such loans acquired by GNPC in their work programme”.
