The Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, has announced a significant divergence in opinion between the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the audit firm KPMG regarding the accountability and value-for-money aspects of the controversial revenue assurance contracts between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML).

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, October 30, 2025, Mr. Agyebeng disclosed that while there was factual alignment on the operational shortcomings of the contract, the OSP’s independent, corruption-focused investigation reached fundamentally different conclusions on the crucial metrics of accountability and fiscal prudence.

Divergence on Accountability and Value for Money

The OSP’s investigation, initiated earlier in the year following widespread public concern over the deal's legality and financial benefits, has pushed beyond the scope of a standard management audit.

"The OSP is unable to agree with some conclusions of the KPMG in respect of accountability and value for money," the Special Prosecutor stated emphatically.

This disagreement is critical, as it signals the OSP's finding that the substantial payments made to SML did not translate into proportionate value for the public purse, and that key officials responsible for the deal must be held criminally accountable.

While the KPMG report acknowledged SML's failure to fully deliver, the OSP sees this lack of performance as symptomatic of a deeper, systemic failure of accountability and corruption, rather than just a contractual lapse.

Factual Alignment but Need for Further Investigation

The Special Prosecutor noted that there was some harmony between the two reports on the operational facts of the contract's execution:

"KPMG report said SML partially delivered on the transaction audit services."

Mr. Agyebeng confirmed that “major factual functions in the KPMG report tallied with our preliminary findings.”

However, he argued that both reports, rather than resolving the core controversy, ultimately “turned out to have more critical questions than answers. It required further investigation.”

This suggests that while the audit confirmed SML only partially delivered on its contractual obligations—a major concern regarding the return on taxpayer money—it did not sufficiently address the criminal intent or culpability of the officials who signed, managed, and approved the payments for the non-delivered services.

The OSP's separate and expanded probe has already revealed that the SML contract was not founded on a “genuine” operational need and was allegedly driven by “self-serving official patronage.”

The OSP's focus is on the criminal aspects of the deal, including the statutory breaches, conflicts of interest, and the alleged "criminally minded" actions of the promoters of the contract, which directly bear on accountability and value for money.

The OSP’s investigation, therefore, differs significantly from the KPMG audit by treating the lack of value for money not merely as an efficiency problem but as evidence of possible corruption and abuse of office, paving the way for criminal prosecutions.