Ken-Ofori-Atta Caught In Oil Bloc Grabbing -Double-crosses Sam Jonah

Whatsup News has intercepted a series of documents showing how the Akufo Addo administration inserted Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta as one of the owners of the lucrative Deepwater Cape Three Points oil blocks, after snatching stakes from an oil company owned by Dr. Sam Jonah, the former Chief Executive of AngloGold Ashanti.

Documents show that the government through the Energy Minister Peter Amewu, clandestinely conjured up Ghana Oil Company (GOIL) to be part of a Petroleum Agreement despite the fact that GOIL’s core business is in downstream petroleum marketing and not exploration (something that GNPC already does on behalf of Ghana).

Whatsup News gathered from reliable sources that GOIL made its sudden appearance in the oil deal because “strings were pulled” to have Ken Ofori-Atta have a bite of Ghana’s crude oil resources, because GOIL’s shareholders include two companies belonging to Ken Ofori-Atta: Databank Asset Management Services Ltd and the pension fund Elac Policy Holders Fund.

The entire backroom manipulations started when on January 18, 2018, Ghana entered a Petroleum exploration agreement with ExxonMobil Ghana, a subsidiary of the American oil giant ExxonMobil. As required by Ghana’s petroleum exploration laws ExxonMobil was supposed to give 5% of equity to a local company.

On September 7, 2018, ExxonMobil’s Director of Venture Management Randi Cruz wrote to the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) that it had selected a suitable local partner which has demonstrated track record in upstream crude oil exploration.

“Following a thorough evaluation of over twenty companies, ExxonMobil is pleased to inform GNPC that we have identified Griffon Energy Africa Limited (“Griffon”) as our preferred indigenous Ghanaian company partner. We look forward to working with GNPC and the Government of Ghana to formalise Griffon’s participation in the Petroleum Agreement,” Randi Cruz wrote to Dr. K.K Sarpong of GNPC.

On September 12, 2018, the GNPC boss, Dr. KK Sarpong acknowledged the selection of Griffon in a letter addressed to ExxonMobil. In the Letter, he claimed the Energy Minister wanted to be “furnished with detailed report” forming the basis of the selection of Griffon.

However, strangely after the “intervention” by the Energy Minister, ExxonMobile suddenly started mentioning GOIL as one of its local partners. On October 8, 2018, Randi Cruz double-tongued, saying GOIL was one of its local partners. On October 19, 2018, a letter written by Peter Amewu acknowledged that GOIL was “one of your [ExxonMobil’s] preferred companies”. However, in another letter written on December 12, 2018, by ExxonMobil, Griffon has been completely taken out of the picture.

Critics suspect that Ken Ofori-Atta has been inserted into the lucrative crude oil business to channel campaign funds into the second term presidential bid of his cousin, President Akufo Addo.