The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) will be expected to provide a detailed account of its expenditure when it appears before the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament for the scrutiny of its 2020 figures.
This is according to a Member of the Committee, John Jinapor.
He says this will help check the practice where GNPC spends so much on corporate social responsibility programs.
Mr. Jinapor who is also the Member of Parliament for the Yapei Kusawgu further said they will demand details of GNPC’s spending during subsequent budgetary allocations to the corporation in a bid to check such spendings.
“GNPC itself will be appearing before the [Mines] Committee for approval of their 2020 budget. Let me assure that, we are not going to take bulk figures. Sometimes they bring bulk and composite figures which are embedded with all these kinds of things. Let me state unequivocally that, we want to insist and get details of every expenditure line item.”
GNPC has come under fire recently for allocating over GHc2 million and $30,000 towards sponsorship of some cultural events and private and public organizations.
Already, the General Manager-in-charge of Sustainability at the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Dr. Kwame Baah Nuarko has justified the organization’s planned spending of over GH¢2 million on sponsorships and donations to external parties.
According to him, such expenditures are not new and are in line with GNPC’s vision. But, John Jinapor also wants the Minister of Energy, John Peter Amewu hauled before Parliament to explain to the House some aspects of the Corporate Social Investment spending by GNPC.
“We intend to bring the Minister before the House to explain when these protocols were adopted. Is the Minister aware of this or it is a policy decision by the government that GNPC can engage in this kind of expenditure? What are the protocols involved and is this something that has been happening over the years? So we know what we can do to streamline the operations of the corporation. If we want to support people, let’s do it in a proper fashion, equitable fair and transparent manner.”
According there was no justification for such spendings.