PIAC pursues prosecution of public officials who mismanage petroleum revenues

Ghana Broadcasting Corporation

5 years ago

The Public Interest and Accountability Committee, PIAC, is to submit five cases on misappropriation and abuse of petroleum revenues to the Economic and Organised Crime Office, EOCO, for further investigation and prosecution.

The Committee’s lawyers are currently finalising the docket for submission within two weeks.

The Chairman of PIAC, Dr. Steve Manteaw said this at a public forum on the management of petroleum revenues in Tema.

The forum forms part of PIAC’s nationwide public engagements on utilisation of petroleum proceeds. He stated that some of the infractions are criminal while others are administrative injustices and lapses.

PIAC signed a memorandum of understanding with EOCO to assist in the investigation and prosecution of institutions and people who go contrary to the dictates of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act.

PIAC has no prosecutorial powers hence, the partnership with EOCO.

Ghana received a total of 4.97 billion dollars as oil revenue from 2011 to 2018 but it is difficult to cite legacy projects that the money has been used to finance.

It is to ensure the judicious use of the petroleum revenues that PIAC is embarking on the prosecution exercise to ensure effective accountability of revenues and deter public officials from mismanaging the petroleum revenues.

The Committee also has issues with non-judicious use of funds, value for money, unaccounted for allocations under the annual budget funding amount, using petroleum revenues to tackle too many national problems at the same time and small allocation to the agricultural sector.

Story By: Dominic Hlordzi