Former President John Mahama’s political career has received a boost due to the “poor performance” of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, according to private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu. Kpebu stated that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) would not have chosen Mahama as their flagbearer again if President Akufo-Addo had excelled in office.
Kpebu made these remarks during a discussion on the statement released by the Presidency regarding the KPMG audit report on the deal between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML) on TV3’s Key Point Saturday. He emphasized that it was Akufo-Addo and Vice President Bawumia who unintentionally rejuvenated Mahama’s career by their actions.
The KPMG report highlighted various discrepancies in the agreement between GRA and SML, including the absence of a technical needs assessment before engaging SML, lack of parliamentary approval for multi-year contracts, and failure to monitor the performance of services provided by SML.
President Akufo-Addo has directed the Ministry of Finance and GRA to conduct a comprehensive assessment, including value-for-money evaluation and stakeholder engagement, before implementing any services related to upstream petroleum audit and minerals audit to prevent significant revenue leakages. Additionally, the President has instructed a review of the contract for downstream petroleum audit services, recommending a switch to a fixed fee structure and other considerations regarding service delivery.
The President expressed his appreciation to KPMG for their thorough audit and called for immediate action on the directives given in the report. This move follows a year-long investigation by The Fourth Estate, which uncovered false and unsubstantiated claims made by SML regarding their operations and payments received based on these claims.
The GRA was reportedly aware of the misleading claims made by SML, and after being confronted with these findings by reporters, the services claimed by SML disappeared from the company’s website.
