Senyo Hossi
The Ghana Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (BDCs) has called on the president to constitute an investigative committee to look into the allegations of bribery between top officials of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) and the Chamber.
Leaked copy of a draft audit report by Ernest & Young (E & Y) claimed top officials of BOST supported some BDCs to rob the company of petroleum products at its depots, leading to significant losses of petroleum products that had affected the national strategic reserve.
The report said the criminal activities were used to create a negative balance of BOST indebtedness to the BDCs.
However, at a press briefing in Accra yesterday, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Chamber, Senyo Hosi, denied the report, calling on President Mahama to institute a probe into the matter to ascertain the truth.
“The issues raised are very serious and we humbly call on His Excellency the President and the Honourable Minister of Petroleum to kindly constitute an investigative committee to look into the issues of reconciliation and allegations of bribery,” he charged.
Contention
“How can we be accused of ‘massive fraud’ and ‘collusion’ when the draft report nowhere states or proves so with the reliability of the report itself being limited by the auditors and clearly defined as ‘reliance restricted,’ even more so when it is known that the audit was a stock reconciliation audit and not a forensic audit which is required by audit practice to establish fraud?” he wondered.
He said the call for a presidential probe did not stop any BDC willing to take legal action against BOST to establish its liability and secure payments from the company for so doing.
“While we call on the formation of the said committee, it is fair to understand that BOST will be liable for any accruing financial costs for delayed payments of its liabilities to BDCs,” he said.
Mr Hosi said the Chamber had lost confidence in the Managing Director of BOST, Kwame Awuah Darko, to manage issues concerning the BDCs and BOST, stating, “The action of the MD has totally crushed our confidence in his ability to ethically and fairly engage with the industry in his capacity as Managing Director on issues pertaining to BDCs and BOST, as well as other players.”
Letters
According to him, BOST, in letters signed by its Managing Director, made some outrageous claims against the eight BDCs which stock balances E & Y could not verify.
Mr Hosi said the letters referred to a final audit report and tabled what it claimed were the established balances, which suggest BDCs owe BOST over 2.13 billion litres of petroleum products, representing over 25 percent of all products receipted into the BOST system from BDCs between 2009 and July 2014.
This, he said, was a dishonest and false representation of the facts, stating, “There is no final audit report and no stock balances have been established in the draft report due to the inconclusiveness of evidence obtained by E & Y to recompile the balances. This by all standards is ridiculous, especially when BOST has not procured a single litre of petroleum product over the said period.”
Mr Hosi said, “To blind BDCs from this ill intent, the MD deliberately failed to advise BDCs with copies of the draft audit report. This is unethical and unfortunate coming from a public officer tasked with managing a strategic state institution such as BOST.”
He said the MD’s conduct hardly showed his support for the growth of genuine Ghanaian businesses.
“How will Ghanaian businesses grow and contribute to the prosperity of the nation when public officials deliberately and diabolically seek to unfairly destroy them by falsely burdening them with unlawful debts and destroying their reputations in the process as well?” he asked rhetorically.
Denial
Mr Hosi also denied confessing to the bribery allegations being levelled against him in a leaked tape currently in circulation.
“In a quest to deliberately malign my reputation and that of the members of the Chamber, a selectively leaked tape is being circulated so as to create the impression that the accusation of bribery to connive and rob BOST was true. I wish to state that neither my office nor person was involved in the audit process or any of the reconciliations that BDCs carry out with BOST monthly,” he averred.
He said the selective voice recording being circulated was not in any way related to the BOST stock audit, insisting, “There is therefore no confession to the allegations associated and concocted in respect of the stock audit.”
Instead, CEO of the BDCs related that the said tape was a confidential recording of a testimony he gave three years ago before a ministerial committee set up to look into complaints lodged by Petroleum Service Providers (PSPs) of extortion by some BOST officials in time past.
“We were the victims and not the accomplices. The recording was formally done and was not a secret tape. It was held in confidence by the Ministry of Petroleum and other committee members under an oath of secrecy,” he underscored.
Hosi explained that the recording from the ministerial committee was made available to Mr Awuah Darko when he assumed office.
For him, “It is an indictment on the Ministry of Petroleum that the recording, bound by oaths of secrecy, was leaked to the media only after making a copy available to the MD of BOST.”
He has therefore called on the minister to take steps to investigate how such a sensitive file was leaked to the media and has been actively circulated.
By Cephas Larbi
Via: -Daily Guide
No comments:
Post a Comment