A beneficial ownership law in Ghana is critical to the fight against corruption in the oil and gas sector.
The law will permit full disclosure on persons who have shares or interests in the Industry, particularly in the upstream and downstream sectors.
The proposal of the law was made by the CEO of the Natural Resources Governance Institute, Professor Daniel Kaufman, in an interview with Class FM’s Ridwan Karim Dini Osman on the sidelines of an anti-graft forum organised in Accra to analyse commitments made by the country at the just-ended UK anti-corruption summit in London.
“Therefore, [knowing] the ultimate beneficiaries and owners of the companies is very crucial. Business and politics must be clearly differentiated apart. We need to know who is involved in what, because in some cases, there are criminal activities behind it,” Prof Kaufman stated on Tuesday June 14.
He explained that it was “extremely important to know not only payments made from companies to government, so that all citizens have total clarity, but also who is benefitting from such payments”.
He held the view that people with political inclinations should not be at the helm of affairs of oil companies and that: “Full disclosure and transparency of contracts are very important and absolutely crucial to go ahead to ensure that no particular lobbyists of interest [groups] are trying to block beneficial ownership.”
He revealed that such regulations were very critical to streamline business activities in the sector as “many countries are now instituting rules against safe havens to disclose beneficiaries and owners [of companies] after the Panama Paper [leaks]”.
Source: ClassFMonline
