IMANI demands fresh probe into BOSTGATE

Policy think tank, IMANI Ghana has waded into the controversy surrounding the sale of contaminated fuel to Movenpiina, calling for fresh investigations into it.

The Bureau of National Investigation (BNI) Tuesday exonerated the BOST MD of any wrongdoing regarding the sale of the product.

The Minister of Energy, Boakye Agyarko Tuesday, July 4, 2017, announced at a news conference that the BNI cleared Mr. Obeng Boateng of complicity in the transaction with Movenpiina.

That notwithstanding, he said the eight-member committee he constituted to probe the circumstances leading to the sale of the 5 million litres of the contaminated product will still go ahead with its work.

But he said the committee will not probe allegations that had already been responded to by the BNI and the National Security.

And commenting on the heavy rejection that greeted the BNI exoneration Wednesday in a Facebook post, the president of IMANI Franklin Cudjoe called for fresh probe into the saga saying, “Sadly, there are inconsistencies in the accounts of the energy ministry, the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) and BOST over the fuel fraud saga.”

According to him, the regulator, the NPA, was kept in the dark about the shady deal until “very very late in the day so its account for the most part, unfortunately, does not count.”

Also, he alleged that “close to 300,000 litres of deliberately contaminated fuel had been released onto the market and all relevant authorities in the trade are aware of it.”

Below is the full statement

IMANI’s Statement of Support for Fresh Enquiry into the Fuel Fraud Saga Sadly, there are inconsistencies in the accounts of the energy ministry, the National Petroleum Authority and the state-owned bulk oil storage company, BOST, over the fuel fraud saga. The attached open letter addressed to the President and also sent to me anonymously, gives some rather damning reasons for chain of errors.

What is clear from the varied accounts we have so far is that; The regulator, the NPA, was kept in the dark about the shady deal until very very late in the day so its account for the most part, unfortunately, does not count.

Close to 300,000 litres of deliberately contaminated fuel had been released onto the market and all relevant authorities in the trade are aware of it. That the companies involved have no licenses and mandate to operate in the trade, illegal trade actually.

This whole saga is the clearest example yet of bastardization of our institutions by politicians. How a supposedly competent committee set up by the energy ministry got railroaded and trumped over by the BNI baffles all observers of our democracy. At worse, were the BNI justified to intervene, their conclusions are at best juvenile and delinquent.

This whole mockery of governance can be made clean again by a singular act of the President- fresh inquiry into the activities of BOST in the last 8 years and all persons liable for fuel fraud be held accountable.

But we want immediate answers to the present fraud. It is simply early in the day for a new government with boundless optimism.