Government covering up fuel sector corruption – Bawa

Member of Parliament for Bongo, Edward Bawa, has said the Akufo-Addo-led government has demonstrated unwillingness to investigate acts of corruption in the petroleum sector.

According to him, over the past few months that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been in office, there have been several reported cases of corruption in the petroleum sector, including the alleged sale of contaminated fuel by the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) Company Limited.

Also, it recently emerged that over 200 trucks of premix fuel were diverted.

According to reports, in January 2017 about 148,000 litres of premix were diverted. In February, 54,000 liters; April, 297,000 litres; May 364,000 litres; June, 270,000; July, 459,000 litres; August, 648,000 litres and October, 1,107,000 litres.

Following that, the Minority in Parliament called for a parliamentary probe into the matter.

Speaking in an Interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Acccra100.5FM on Thursday December 7, Mr Bawa, who is also a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Mines and Energy, said: “On the basis of the BOST saga, we called for an investigation, accordingly a committee was set up to investigate the matter but that committee was collapsed by the government. Another committee was set up, but as we speak today, we don’t know how far the committee has reached with its work.”

He added: “On 23rd November, I asked the Minister of Energy a question on the floor of parliament regarding the committee that was probing the BOST saga and the Minister told us the report was ready and that they were studying the report. But my information was that the committee did not do its work.

“…The executive under the leadership of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo have demonstrated their unwillingness to investigate all the corruption in the downstream sector in the petroleum industry because they did not investigate the BOST issue.

“On the basis of this, the Minority is saying that parliament should investigate the diversion of the premix fuel and see how we can solve the problem.”