Chief Executive Officer of Ghana National Petroleum Commission (GNPC) has denied a claim by IMANI Africa citing him for potential conflict of interest over an agreement between the GNPC and a private firm.

Dr. Kofi Koduah Sarpong’s denial follows a news conference by the policy think tank Thursday, where it called on government to take proactive steps to protect the state’s interest recently discovered oil wells in the Deepwater Tano Cape Three Points (DWT/CTP) block offshore Ghana.

At the said event, the IMANI Vice President, Kofi Bentil, alleged that the GNPC boss may be involved in a potential conflict of interest situation after he connected Dr. K.K Sarpong with Fueltrade Ghana Limited, the private firm which holds a 2% interest the DWT/CTP block.

Kofi Bentil said if this interest still obtains, the position of Dr K.K. Sarpong as head of GNPC which is the government’s chief negotiator on oil matters, raises questions.

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However, the GNPC Boss has described the claim as false.

“…I wish to state emphatically that neither I nor my family own Fuel Trade as claimed by IMANI Ghana,” Dr. K.K Sarpong stated in a statement Thursday.

According to him, the 2% stake Fueltrade holds in the new discovery, was acquired in 2014, pre-dating his appointment as Chief Executive of the state entity in 2017.

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He expressed surprise that a credible organisation as IMANI Ghana, could not carry out due diligence on the ownership of Fueltrade Limited “before arriving at its erroneous conclusion, causing me serious embarrassment and jeopardising my standing in the international business community.”   

The “unjustifiable claim” he indicated, had caused him “immense economic, political and social cost which he described as “unacceptable” and thereby “demand a retraction of the said claim and an unreserved apology” from IMANI and Kofi Bentil not later than “two weeks”.

Read Dr. K.K Sarpong’s statement: