Decision to off-load Ghana's 7% shares to a private company illegal – Minority to GNPC

The Minority in Parliament says it has uncovered a clandestine and surreptitious attempt by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and its board chairman to sell the seven per cent shares acquired by the Republic of Ghana from Anadarko West Cape Three Points Company (Anadarko) to Petroleum Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa (Petro SA).

Ranking Member, Mines and Energy Committee, John Abdulai Jinapor, in a statement on behalf of the Minority said they have sighted correspondences between the GNPC and Petro SA, revealing a covert attempt by the GNPC to off-load the said shares, “which we consider as illegal and unconscionable.”

The statement also said the Minority has equally taken note of the usual desperate attempts by the Minister of Finance to commit Ghana yet again, by borrowing huge sums of money from Litasco, a private company on the back of JOHL, by forward-selling the Republic of Ghana's crude oil expected from JOHL.

“For a government that has over-borrowed its way into a state of bankruptcy, the least this government can do will be to refrain from such reckless borrowing, especially against future oil receipts,” it added.

This action, the statement says, is highly reprehensible, and urged that all steps must be taken to pull the breaks on the government from their “insatiable desire to keep borrowing with the least opportunity."

This act, if not checked, according to Mr Jinapor, will further exacerbate the already precarious debt levels Ghana has currently found itself.