The Majority in Parliament has dismissed as unfounded the calls by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the prosecution of individuals allegedly involved in the SML-GRA contract.

Members of the Majority caucus argued that there is inadequate evidence to suggest that any government official is responsible for causing financial loss to the state, making prosecution in the SML-GRA deal unwarranted.

In a statement to the press, the Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, stressed that President Akufo-Addo's decision to conduct a comprehensive review of the contract is in the best interest of the public.

“Now we are aware that our friends in the NDC are calling for certain prosecutions. I think that they have not paid attention to the whole issue and they only want to do politics as usual. Their call is unfounded for the simple reason that there isn’t any established proof of any officer of state causing financial loss to the state.

“Indeed what they think are payments to SML are not payments borne out of the government’s revenue. If you peruse the agreement, SML is paid out of what it generates and they would have to pay attention to the details. They are paid 0.05% per litre of revenue that they generate as a result of the system that they put in place to monitor activities in the petroleum sector.

“And it is instructive to also note that his company opened its doors to the Mines and Energy Committee to inspect and to see the nature of their operations. What I want to urge our colleagues in the opposition is that they should not kill Ghanaian businesses.

“Often under the guise of due diligence and ensuring that there is transparency, we often get out of control and destroy Ghanaian companies, whereas foreign ones who operate in certain sectors get a kind of protection that makes them develop their business but often Ghanaian businesses suffer,” he stated.

The report released by the Communications Director of the Presidency, Eugene Arhin, finds the GRA guilty of failing to obtain approval from the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) for contracts with Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML).

According to a report by KPMG, GRA sought approval from PPA three times between June 2017 and September 2017 to engage SML for transaction audit services, but approval was not granted.

Despite this, GRA proceeded to engage SML as a subcontractor to West Blue, eventually taking over services from West Blue when their contract ended in December 2018.

Furthermore, GRA added external price verification to the services offered by SML and signed a downstream petroleum audit agreement with SML, all without PPA approval.

It was not until August 27, 2020, under new leadership at GRA, that PPA ratified the procurement processes used to engage SML. This raises questions about GRA's adherence to procurement regulations and the oversight of its contracting processes.