Business News of Friday, 23 March 2018
Source: 3news.com
2018-03-23
Minority spokesperson on Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson
The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation is going to construct a new head office in Accra at the cost of 20 million dollars. GNPC also intends to spend a whopping 13.4 million cedis to renovate its current office.
The Minority Spokesperson on Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson revealed this after Parliament approved the budgetary allocation for the GNPC on Thursday for its programmes in 2018.
Mr. Ato Forson told TV3 that although Parliament approved 998 million Ghana cedis for GNPC, the corporation, he said, says it will spend 4.5 billion.
GNPC has decided to go to the capital market to borrow in order to make up for the difference, he stated.
Stinks
“For a strange reason, GNPC says it is going to spend 20 million dollars for the purposes of building their headquarters in Accra, in spite of that, they have existing head office, they said they are spending 13.4 million cedis to renovate that office, what at all are they renovating?
“Let’s not forget that the same people have budgeted 20 million dollars to build a head office in Ghana. Again they say they are going to spend another 10 million dollars to build an operational office in Takoradi.”
Ato Forson said the cost of the projects “stinks” and questioned, “if that is how to protect public purse; somebody should tell [government] to behave and not to spoil public money like that”.
He also stated that additional 2 million dollars have been budgeted by the GNPC to build a transit office, where its staff will stay temporarily when in transit.
The corporation also intends to build a clinic at the cost of 1.5 million dollars this year.
Gold mining
The Minority Spokesperson wondered why GNPC would move from its core mandate and divert into mining as it plans to spend 24 million to mine gold.
GNPC has also budgeted 45 million dollars to purchase fishing vessels, he revealed.
“They are deviating from their core mandate, I think it is appalling, something that we have to stop them,” he demanded.
Agricultural Roads
Ato Forson noted that whilst the erstwhile NDC government was criticised by the NPP who are now in power for building cocoa roads, “strangely, GNPC is going to spend 300 million Ghana cedis to build agricultural roads, it is in the budget.”
He suggested, “we should trim GNPC to focus on their core mandate”.