Ghana National Gas Company Limited (Ghana Gas) has noted with utter dismay the Monday, 21st January, 2013 edition of the Public Agenda captioned, “Ghana Gas Chops GHC20 million.”

It has also refuted allegations in the Monday 28th January, 2013 edition of the Economic Tribune titled, “Ghana Gas in Trouble”.

In a rejoinder issued in Accra, Ghana Gas said both publications made reference to the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) report for the period 1st January – 30th June, 2012 published on 15th September 2012 which maliciously alleged that Ghana Gas had failed to account for an amount of GH¢20 million released to it as part of its capitalization by the Ministry of Finance & Economic Planning.

“We have studied the report and wish to correct the erroneous impression being created by these publications.

Ghana Gas was incorporated on July 23, 2011 and the first tranche of the capitalization of GHC20 million cedis was indeed released by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning on October 25th 2011 to the company.

“The purpose of the capitalization was for, among others the topographical & geographical studies; compensation to project-affected persons on the Right of Way (ROW) and the Gas Processing Plant (GPP) site; onshore and offshore Environmental and Social Impact Assessments; land acquisition for the GPP site and the ROW and the construction enabling works, including the reinforcement of the Amanzure, Ankobra, Ebi road bridges.”

The company also mentioned other reasons as the construction support logistics and also the front end engineering designs (FEED) for the GPP.

Ghana Gas said it has not received any request from the PIAC to specifically account for the GHC20 million released to it by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.

Rather, it said it received a draft report of the PIAC on 18th December 2012, the covering letter of which stated, “To keep the spirit of cooperation and team work which have characterized our working relationship with you and also present a balanced report, the Committee would want to invite you for your professional comments on the relevant portions of this draft report before finalizing it for publication soon.”

“There was no specific request from the PIAC to Ghana Gas to account for the GHC20 million capitalization. In fact, the report did not make any mention of the GHC20 million at all: Recommendation VII of the final report was inexplicably missing in the draft report that was issued to Ghana Gas.

The portion of the draft report that made reference to Ghana Gas were statements of fact, regarding the company’s mandate, its current operations and the status of the Gas Infrastructure Development Project, all of which did not warrant any commentary from Ghana Gas.”

The Board of Directors of Ghana Gas approved for the first Statutory Accounts of the Company to be issued for the period July 23rd 2011 to 31st December 2012.

These Statutory Audited Accounts will be filed with the Registrar General’s Department, the State Enterprises Commission, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and the Ministry of Energy. In our view, the capitalization amount of GHC20 million will be statutorily accounted for in the company’s annual accounts to 31st December 2012.

The Statutory Accounts to December 31st 2012 are being prepared for external audit. These accounts will be made public as soon as they are ready.

Ghana Gas wishes to reassure the good people of Ghana that we do maintain the highest level of integrity and professionalism in all our operations as we are motivated to fulfill our mission. We therefore urge the general public to disregard the false, mischievous and baseless publications.

Finally, we wish also to remind the general public, especially the mass media that we operate an open house policy and thus willing to clarify any prevailing concerns of theirs before going to press, it said.