The lawyer for the companies involved in the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) vehicle procurement has stated that the prices of vehicles supplied to the Authority were not inflated, contrary to the assertion by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ).

According to him, since the vehicle companies are business entities, they cannot buy the vehicles at a particular price and sell them to the GRA at the same cost. As such, they added normal business costs and profit to the initial price they bought them at before selling to the GRA.

“What CHRAJ is saying is that when they check the prices of the said vehicles at Toyota Ghana, they realise that the prices have been inflated by a certain amount by the various companies. But this is where they get it all wrong and completely mislead the public.

“So when they applied for sole sourcing, they went to Toyota and bought the vehicles and I cannot buy a vehicle from Toyota at GHS100 and sell it at GHS100. So what they did was that they procured these vehicles from Toyota, calculated all their cost margins and added their profit margins and sold it to GRA.

“That is what happened. Unless CHRAJ wants to say that from now every Ghanaian who wants a car by any state institution must go to Toyota to buy,” he added.

His clarification comes swiftly after the former GRA Commissioner-General, Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, was accused by CHRAJ of his alleged involvement in fraudulent and irregular contract awards to three vehicle companies, causing the state a financial loss of about USD 826,551, equivalent to GHS 9 million.

The companies he signed the deals with include Ronor Motors Ghana Limited, Telinno Ghana Limited, and Sajel Motors and Trading Company Limited.

The anti-corruption watchdog’s findings followed an investigation into a 2022 petition filed by the Movement for Truth and Accountability (MFTA).

According to CHRAJ, the contracts involved non-existent contractors, fraudulent duplication, and inflated prices. “The respondent, being the Entity Head, cannot escape liability,” the report stated.

Meanwhile, the Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Anthony Sarpong, together with other top officials, has been summoned by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) for questioning over the controversial GRA–Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML) revenue assurance contract.

The other GRA officials include the Assistant Commissioner in charge of Finance, Celestine Annan, and the Technical Assistant to the Commissioner-General, Kenneth Agyei-Duah.

Their invitation follows the recent arrest of the Acting Head of Legal Affairs at the GRA, Freeman Sarbah, for his alleged involvement in the controversial deal and for attempting to interfere with justice.

Strategic Mobilisation Limited has been operating in Ghana for the past five years to monitor revenue in the oil (upstream) and mining (minerals) sectors. In 2024, the government's revenue arm discontinued two contract transactions — the Audit and External Verification Service Contract (AEVS) with SML — and halted portions of the contract.

The GRA also suspended SML’s Upstream Petroleum and Minerals Revenue Audit until further notice. The suspension came after the then-President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, received a report from KPMG on SML’s deals.

Last week, President John Dramani Mahama ordered the termination of the SML deal following a comprehensive investigation conducted by the Office of the Special Prosecutor, led by Mr. Kissi Agyebeng.

The President issued the termination through a letter to the Finance Minister, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson. Following the investigations, the anti-corruption agency discovered procurement breaches and irregularities in contract awards, contractual overreach beyond SML’s original mandate, lack of value for money due to inflated costs and questionable service delivery, as well as legal concerns.

The SML contracts included several components: a Transaction Audit and External Price Verification Service Agreement, a Measurement Audit for Downstream Petroleum Products Contract, and later agreements for Upstream Petroleum and Minerals & Metals Audit Services.

On May 3, 2024, the GRA terminated two of those contracts — the Transaction Audit and External Price Verification — and suspended the Upstream Petroleum and Minerals Audit portion under the erstwhile government.

In June this year, following the OSP’s findings, the Measurement Audit for Downstream Petroleum Products (the main SML contract) was completely terminated, saving Ghana over GHS 1.2 billion.

In an addendum shared on its X (formerly Twitter) handle, the OSP noted that additional savings had been made aside from the GHS 1.2 billion. The OSP announced that Ghana has saved more than GHS 2.6 billion and US$173 million.

The additional savings, it said, arose from avoiding payments tied to crude oil and gold export monitoring services that were never implemented.

“Following the earlier announcement that Ghana saved over GHS 1.2 billion from the cancellation of the main SML revenue assurance contract, there are additional savings from the upstream and mineral sector components of the agreement.

These contracts, which were based on a variable fee structure linked to exports of crude oil and gold, would have cost the State approximately US$173 million for crude oil and GHS 2.6 billion for gold exports over five years.

SML did not commence work as the arrangement coincided with the KPMG audit. Owing to the criminal investigations by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the subsequent cancellation by the President, Ghana has now avoided these further costs,” the OSP noted in its statement.

In a highly detailed press briefing following a comprehensive investigation, the OSP mentioned critical findings that exposed systemic breaches of public financial regulations and a clear misuse of authority that caused the state to lose money.

"There was no genuine need for contracting SML for the obligations it’s purported to perform," the Special Prosecutor declared.

Mr. Agyebeng has solidified the case against the contentious Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML) contract, alleging that former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta approved payments without any technical or operational justification.

According to the OSP, Ofori-Atta failed to intervene even though SML openly lacked the necessary capacity, expertise, and tools to execute its contract. Instead, he allegedly remained complicit, approving payments from the Consolidated Fund, the Petroleum Revenue Account, and the Tax Refund Account.

The OSP’s investigation concluded, “Had he not been personally benefiting from SML’s unlawfully procured contracts, the openly displayed lack of capacity, expertise, and tools by SML would have immediately triggered his intervention to halt payments to SML and demand accountability. Instead, he looked on conspiratorially in silence while endorsing and approving payments to SML from the Consolidated Fund, Petroleum Revenue Account, and Tax Refund Account with no technical or operational basis”.

The OSP’s findings expose SML’s clear inability to perform the revenue assurance services it was contracted for, which included key responsibilities such as transaction audits and external price verification.

According to the investigation, the continuous “troubleshooting displayed during this period was born of the unlawful imposition of SML in the space and the still lingering reality of SML’s lack of capacity to carry out transaction audits and external price verification.”

Even after 15 months of engagement, SML reportedly “had no system in place to receive CCVRs” (customs control and valuation records), the essential data needed to execute its tasks. Additionally, the existing data provider, West Blue, was under “no legal obligation to release the vital data” to SML.

As a result, the assigned work remained uncompleted, yet the company “continued to be paid,” reinforcing the OSP’s conclusion that the situation led to a financial loss to the state.

It is important to note that former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has been declared wanted by the OSP for causing financial loss to the state in several dealings, including the contractual arrangement between Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited and the Ghana Revenue Authority for the stated objective of enhancing revenue assurance in the downstream petroleum sector, upstream petroleum production, and the minerals and metals resource value chain.

The activities of SML came to light years ago after Manasseh Azure Awuni raised concerns over contractual breaches in a deal involving the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML).

The original purpose of the GRA–SML contract was to boost revenue assurance in vital sectors of Ghana’s economy, including the downstream petroleum sector, upstream petroleum production, and the minerals and metals value chain. The goal was to streamline revenue collection, ensuring greater transparency and efficiency in these high-revenue sectors.

Following these concerns, an in-depth audit was carried out by international firm KPMG, commissioned by former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. The audit was launched to examine the contractual agreements between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and SML, with a particular focus on the procedures and approvals related to the contract.

The KPMG audit uncovered significant procedural errors and regulatory violations in awarding the contract. Specifically, the GRA did not obtain the required approvals from the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) and failed to seek parliamentary oversight before finalising the agreement with SML.

The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) entered into six service agreements with Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML) using the single-source procurement method without obtaining approval from the Public Procurement Authority (PPA).

The first agreement, covering Transaction Audit Services, was signed on June 1, 2018. This was followed by a Contract Extension on January 1, 2019. On April 1, 2019, the GRA entered into another agreement with SML for External Price Verification Services.

Subsequently, on October 3, 2019, the two parties signed a Consolidation Services Agreement, which combined the Transaction Audit and External Verification Services.

That same day, a separate agreement was also signed for the Measurement Audit of Downstream Petroleum Products. Later, on July 29, 2020, an Addendum to the Measurement Audit for Downstream Petroleum Products Agreement was executed. The audit report also revealed that SML owes the government over GHS 31 million in taxes.