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The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) has called on the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to double up efforts at recovering loans and guarantees amounting to US$318.09 million.

This, according to the committee, was critical to ensuring that the Corporation’s work programme did not suffer from non-implementation.

“For now, GNPC should discontinue granting loans and guarantees until significant recoveries are made with respect to outstanding loans and guarantees owed the Corporation,” said PIAC in its 2021 Annual Report on Management and Use of Petroleum Revenue.

The report indicated the GNPC in 2021 could not realize its budgeted revenue from loans and guarantees amounting to US$126.68 million out of an accumulated total of US$318.09 million owed the Corporation by the Government and its agencies since 2011.

The recoveries were supposed to help the corporation finance its budget deficit of US$191.70 million which was realized when the projected total revenue for 2021 was US$1.3 billion compared with its projected expenditure of US$1.4 billion.

“In that regard, the Corporation put together a 3-year staggered repayment plan for outstanding receivables some of which have been outstanding since 2011 and are seriously hampering the effective implementation of the Corporation’s mandate and work programmes,” the report stated.

Some entities owing the corporation included Volta River Authority, Ministry of Finance, Tema Oil Refinery, and the Ghana National Gas Company.

It was also revealed that the Corporation in 2021 had spent US$640,293 on the Maritime Boundary Special Project (MBSP).

In effect, the report stated that cumulatively, GNPC has spent a total of US$11.85 million on Maritime Boundary-related activities, even though the Ghana Boundary Commission is responsible for such activities.

PIAC has therefore called on Parliament to consider placing some control measures on the expending of GNPC’s budget on Corporate Social Investment (CSI) and guarantees to state institutions, particularly in the light of their inability to respond to some of their cash calls.

“GNPC’s CSI expenditure must not replace the use of the ABFA to fund government projects and programmes,” the committee noted.

The GNPC was established in 1983 by the GNPC Law, 1984 (PNDCL 64) to play a key role along the petroleum value chain from licensing and extraction to decommissioning.