The Executive Director of the Centre for Environmental Management and Sustainable Energy (CEMSE), Benjamin Nsiah, is challenging the credibility of the Auditor-General’s 2024 review of Ghana’s petroleum sector.
Calling the report “shoddy,” Nsiah and other civil society organizations are demanding an independent special audit to uncover what they believe are major irregularities, especially within the Unified Petroleum Price Fund (UPPF).
In an interview with Bismark Brown on Happy 98.9 FMs on a political show dubbed EPA HO A DABEN, the executive director claims that the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) has failed to publish complete financial records of the UPPF since its 2005 inception.
Also, despite generating an estimated GHS 4 billion annually, only GHS 524 million was declared as a surplus in 2023.
Southern consumers pay higher fuel margins, allegedly to subsidize distribution to the north, but there’s little clarity on how those funds are used, he added.
Nsiah and allies are urging a full-scale audit covering 2021 to 2024 and pushing for the NPA’s regulatory and fund management roles to be split, citing accountability concerns.