Manasseh Azure Awuni, the founding editor of The Fourth Estate, has demanded a thorough probe into the revenue mobilization deal between Strategic Mobilization Ghana Ltd (SML) and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
Despite President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s request for the contract to be halted in order to allow for a thorough evaluation, Manasseh believes that it should be completely terminated.
On January 2, 2024, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo gave KPMG the order to audit the GRA and SML contract.
In a press release on Wednesday, April 24, the Presidency provided commentary on the report after it was submitted. It stated that “the President has directed that the Ministry and GRA conduct a comprehensive technical needs assessment, value-for-money assessment, and stakeholder engagements before implementing such services,” citing the possibility that significant revenue leakages could be prevented by upstream petroleum audit and minerals audit services.
The president’s order on The Big Issue on Citi FM and Citi TV, however, did not sit well with the award-winning freelance investigative journalist.
What he said:
“I expect this contract to be cancelled and it is not something that should continue because it is not something that is in the interest of the public so what has been recommended for termination and even the existing downstream one, they both have to be cancelled and further investigations conducted for monies to be retrieved because they kept saying they [SML] did partial fulfilment of the contract terms and I don’t think we can pay somebody fully and they will give us partial results,” he told Selorm Adonoo.
Manasseh Azure Awuni further recommended that “some persons should be made to face the law. The former MASLOC boss [Sedina Tamakloe Attionu] has been jailed and what has sent her to jail is a tiny fraction of what has been wasted in this SML scandal.”
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