Publish Names Of Beneficial Owners Of Oil Companies –PIAC

The Public interest and Accountability Committee, PIAC has ordered the petroleum commission to disclose and publish names of all beneficial owners of upstream oil and gas companies.

In its latest 2014 report in the oil and gas sector which was also captured in the Ghana Extractive industry Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) report said the petroleum commission is advised to establish as quickly as possible an online repository where the information on upstream petroleum blocks are found. Such information, he report said will enhance transparency and improve efficiency of the operations of the commission.

Speaking to the Media after a multi-stakeholders consultation on oil and gas in Takoradi, Major Daniel Ablorh Quacoo, chairman of PIAC regarded as sad the failure of the petroleum commission to have an online repository, where information for the petroleum sector such as ownership of blocks, coordinates of oil blocks, allocation of blocks as well as annual payments made by upstream petroleum companies are found.

Information gathered by the New Crusading Guide reveals that most owners of companies possessing oil blocks upstream in Ghana as registered by the Registrar General’s Department are only legal owners; that’s they officially serve as representatives of the real owners (beneficial owners) of these companies.

The Africa Centre for Energy Policy, ACEP, for instance cites A to Z Petroleum as having Mr Joseph Siaw Agyapong, owner of JOSPONG GROUP and Zoomlion as being the real or beneficial owner.

However, it would take more than a fortune to realize this since the same company is partly registered in Gibraltar, a tax free haven with different shareholders and legal owners.

ACEP) recently criticized government of Ghana for not taken the interest of Ghanaians at heart in the signing of the doubtful US$7 billion integrated oil and gas development agreement in the Sankofa-Gye-Nyame Fields with ENI, an Italian Firm.

Dr Mohammed Amin Adams further disclosed that it has submitted some documents containing dubious contracts signed between the government of Ghana and some oil companies to The United States department of Justice to investigate.

They include recent contracts signed under the certificate of urgency without proper scrutiny and community engagement as well as transparency in the area of tender and competitive bidding.

Mr Amin Adams indicated that several documents have been intercepted by the United states Department of Justice and in collaboration with some criminal investigators who are already in Ghana; these classified documents are being analyzed carefully.