Government has not done enough in fighting corruption - Sammy Gyamfi

Mr Sammy Gyamfi, the National Communication Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has not done enough to fight corruption in the country.

He said corruption had been a bane of the country’s development for years, with the poor and vulnerable being the victims, and yet government was not doing enough to change the trend.

“As a responsible opposition with a duty to keep government on its toes, the NDC is embarking on a corruption tracker series to track the status of the countless corruption scandals that Ghanaians have witnessed under the NPP government,” he said.

Mr Gyamfi speaking at a media briefing in Accra on Monday said the NDC was worried about the fact that resources that should have gone into developmental projects to uplift the poor were allegedly channelled into the pockets of individuals.

According to him, on January 18, 2017, five million litres of fuel was contaminated at the premises of the state-owned Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) Company by the mixture of diesel and petrol and sold to unlicensed companies to Movenpina and Zup Oil under questionable circumstances.

He alleged that the two companies were not licensed by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to trade in petroleum products in the downstream petroleum sector, adding that the sale of the contaminated fuel to these unlicensed companies breached sections 11 and 32 of the NPA Act (ACT 691) of 2005.

Mr Gyamfi said under the leadership of former President Mahama, BOST was efficiently managed that for the first time in history, it traded with major international oil companies including; British Petroleum, Vitol, Trafigura and others on an open credit supply system.

He said at the time of exiting office in 2017, the NDC bequeathed to the NPP government, 200,000 metric tonnes of refined products valued at about GHc 1 billion and 2 billion barrels of crude valued at $100 million.

He stated that the NDC improved the finances of BOST through prudent management that after reducing the BOST margin from 10 pesewas to 3 pesewas in the year 2015.

We indicated in our 2016 supplementary budget that the NDC will totally scrap the 3 pesewas BOST margin on the prices of petroleum products to reduce the cost of fuel products and provide respite to Ghanaian petroleum consumers.”

He said, the NPP government had, however, increased the BOST margin by 100 per cent that is from 3 pesewas to 6 pesewas, ostensibly to raise funds for the management of the company.

Mr Gyamfi said after three and a half year of the NPP government, the BOST had run down such that the company had no strategic stocks of its own and was virtually borrowing to pay its workers.

“The NDC government in 2021 will investigate and prosecute all culprits involved in the BOST corruption scandal. Those who continue to plunder the assets of the state property will account for it sooner than later.”