The founding Editor of The Fourth Estate, Manasseh Azure Awuni is calling for a thorough investigation into the revenue mobilization deal between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Ltd (SML).
While President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has requested that the contract be suspended pending a comprehensive review, Manasseh believes it should be cancelled altogether.
In his view, a suspension would not be enough, and the contract should be terminated outright to ensure transparency and accountability in the revenue mobilization process.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo ordered KPMG to audit the contract between GRA and SML on January 2, 2024.
Commenting on the report following its submission, the Presidency in a press release on Wednesday, April 24, directed that “given that the upstream petroleum audit and minerals audit services could prevent significant revenue leakages, 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.”
The award-winning freelance investigative journalist however disagreed with the president’s directive on The Big Issue on Citi FM and Citi TV.
“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.”
