Ranking Member on Parliament’s Energy and Mines Committee, John Jinapor, has cautioned government to apply petroleum sector revenues for their intended purpose.
According to him, 500 million of energy sector levies which could not be accounted for by the Ministry of Energy had been used to pay for pensions and other non-petroleum related activities.
The money, he said could have been directed towards subsidizing petroleum products in the country to ease the burden on consumers amidst the current harsh economic conditions.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, John Jinapor explained that also taking into consideration the huge windfall the government had made in the selling of petroleum products on the international market it would have been prudent for the National Petroleum Authority to use part of the windfall to subsidise fuel at the pump.
“We’ve made it clear that contrary to what we were expecting from our petroleum revenues, and bear in mind we normally get petroleum revenues from carried interests, that is, our shares, royalties, from our taxes … all these put together the Minister projected 6.6 billion. In just three months, we’ve gotten over 8 billion.
“That is an unprecedented windfall; I’ve never witnessed that in my life in this sector. So that’s a huge windfall. Already we’re paying full cost of the petroleum products; government is not subsidizing even one cedi. In fact, we’re even paying more because the BDCs are front loading their risk. So we hold the view that having gotten this huge windfall, something can be done.
“But even more importantly, the price stabilization and recovery levy is meant for three items and you’ve enumerated them so I don’t want to go into that. We projected 260million, like you’re saying, for the first two quarters. We got about 800 million. That’s a huge amount. That’s about 600 million difference,” he said.
He added, “So what I was expecting NPA to tell us is that of that 800 million we applied X amount to subsidise petroleum products. They should be telling us today because they keep the records. All we’re hearing is that the money is not available, the money is not available.
“And I have records here, ESLA performance 2016-2020 annual report in the management of the energy sector levies, price stabilization levy, we were expecting 2.2 billion, actual utilization was one billion, even the lodgement was 1.5 billion, so where is the 500 million?
“We’re talking of outturns; we’re not talking of projections. 500 million cannot be accounted for. And if you read the report in detail, they’ve used this 500 million to pay for pensions and other non-petroleum related activities. That is why we’re cautioning government that, apply those revenues to their intended purpose.”
Source:www.myjoyonline.com