Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), has informed the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament that the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) owes the Authority GH¢4.6 million.
The CEO made the disclosure on Friday at the PAC’s sitting in Accra, when he took his turn to respond to issues raised in the 2019 Auditor-General’s Report concerning the NPA.
According to the report, the auditors were unable to confirm the existence and completeness of the account receivable balances and that for instance, third-party confirmation received from TOR indicated that its balance was GH¢6,884,099.23 receivable from NPA, however, NPA presented a balance of GH¢4,648,450.75 receivables from TOR.
It noted that there was an irreconcilable difference between the outstanding balances in the books of NPA and TOR as was verified from the balances the two entities posted as of 31 December 2017.
It said receivables Balances were material to the financial statements and so can affect the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of the financial statements.
The Report urged the Authority to ensure that proper reconciliations were made between NPA and TOR and other entities making up the receivables, and confirmation of such balances promptly made available to the Auditors.
Dr Abdul-Hamid said: “As far as they are concerned, we needed to offset what Government owed them with what they owe us but our response as per this letter that we have written to the Public Accounts Committee, our answer to that is that we are not the ones responsible for paying under-recoveries.”
“Payment of under-recoveries is the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance, and so, there is no way they can ask us to offset what Government owes them with what they owe us.
“As far as we are concerned our books between 2014 and 2017 indicate that they owed us GH¢4,648,450.75,” he added.
He reiterated that TOR had subsequently confirmed that they owed the Authority GH¢4,648,450.75.
Dr Abdul-Hamid explained to the Committee that the GH¢6,884,099.23, which TOR initially claimed had been owed them by the Authority, was what the Government owed the Refinery.
Dr James Klutse Avedzi, the Chairman of PAC said the information given by the NPA CEO was not available to the Auditors at the time of the audit.
The Auditors confirmed the new development to the PAC, stating that with the reconciliation done by TOR and NPA, the indebtedness was now GH¢4,648,450.75.
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