The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has stated that the first shipment of the oil purchased under the “Gold for Oil” (G4O) initiative was not purchased with cash as being speculated.
It explained that intermediaries in the deal paid for the oil in cash, whilst Ghana paid them with gold.
A Deputy Minister for Energy, Mr. Andrew Egyapa Mercer was grossly misrepresented when he revealed that cash was paid for the 40,000 metric tonnes of oil under the G4O deal.
According to him, all the companies the government dealt with initially did not have the capacity to exchange gold for oil.
“The policy actually started with an intent to do strict barter for gold and petroleum products, but it became apparent that any of the international oil trading companies that do not have a commodity wing to deal with gold on their behalf will be excluded from the policy.
“We developed the policy such that we were operating two streams, one was direct barter and the second was monetising the gold, so we can pay for IOTs that were not other commodity focused but solely petroleum products…so the test run that we did was actually paid through the second route”, he explained.
Speaking on the issue at news conference on Friday, NPP’s Director of Communications, Richard Ahiagbah, indicated that no money was paid.
“When you hear that we paid money for the consignment, it is not that money moved from the vault of the Bank of Ghana for the payment but rather through the transaction, we offered gold through the broker to be able to get the forex for it.”
Fuel prices
Consumers were expecting that the arrival of the 40,000 metric tons will reduce the pressure on forex and also present the country with cheaper fuel.
However, that did not happen as fuel prices increased twice and reduced once within the period.
Government has disclosed that the policy will not immediately lead to a reduction in fuel prices until more consignment arrives in Ghana.
It has also said there is no need for government to put before Parliament, the gold for oil agreement for parliamentary approval.
This followed calls on government to provide contract details of the recent fuel consignment brought under the gold for oil policy.
Former President John Dramani Mahama had asked government to send the gold-for-oil agreement to Parliament for scrutiny and approval since the deal is an international financial transaction.
