Above $9million GNPC projects halted – Audit report

The Auditor-General has cautioned the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to take drastic steps to secure funding to complete all of its abandoned projects in order not to incur costs over time.

The Auditor-General in its 2020 report estimated that projects costing over $9 million had not seen any progress over a period of time, which it said could spike up the cost.

According to the report, these halted projects could also potentially expose the corporation to negative publicity in the media.

Some of the halted projects include the renovation of the Petroleum House, costing over $ 2 million which remains outstanding since 2015.

There is also the head office project with current carrying balance of GH¢976,673, including GH¢350,000 spent on drafting Contract Document for Tender Process and Evaluation in 2016.

Again, a property complex in Takoradi worth $7,500,000 purchased in 2017 is yet to be completed for use by the corporation.

The Auditor General said “As these projects remain uncompleted for several years, the cost to complete them increases over time and the corporation does not derive value from their current state.”

The Auditor-General revealed that although GNPC recorded a cyber-attack incident during the prior year (2017), no vulnerability and penetration test was performed during the 2018 financial year.

It, therefore, advised the management of GNPC to ensure continuous performance of vulnerability and penetration tests to identify possible loopholes in the internal security network and beef it up the security accordingly.