COPEC, BOST Saga: PIAC calls for bi-partisan probe

The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) has called for a bipartisan probe into the allegation by Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) of a shady sale of crude oil by the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation(BOST) company.

The alleged questionable deal according to COPEC, has caused the country some loss of an estimated GHS30million in revenue from the sale of 1.8million barrels of crude oil to “unlicensed company” BB Energy.

However, BOST has rubbished the claims describing them as baseless and illogical.

But the Chairman of PIAC, Dr Steve Manteaw has said the lack of transparency in the activities of BOST is worrying and further questioned the silence of the regulator, National Petroleum Authority (NPA) and the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) on the raging issue.

“I would have expected the regulator for the industry, NPA would have come in immediately to begin the investigations. If that fails, we have the EOCO and other institution, in fact, the essence of having an Economic and Organized Crime Office is that when allegations of this nature come up they should not wait for promptings from political authority. They should immediately go in there and begin investigations.

“Look at the last time around they sat by and the Minister for Energy constituted a committee to go into the allegations. Then you had BNI stepping aside to come and whitewash the boss of BOST, this time around I think we’ll need independent investigations. If the regulator can do the investigations, fine, but even that it will help to have a bi-partisan probe. I’m hearing that the committee of Parliament is becoming interested in this matter, they have oversight over the executive and it will be within their right to investigate this matter and establish if there’s any wrongdoing in this particular transaction,” Dr Manteaw told Starr News.