No allocation from ABFA to GIFF for second consecutive year – PIAC report

For the second consecutive year, there was no allocation from the Annual Budget Funding Amount to the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF), contrary to the provisions of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA) and GIIF Act 877, the Public Interest Accountability Committee's (PIAC) annual report for 2019 has revealed.

The Committee’s report, among others, is to provide insight and monitoring as to how the country’s petroleum revenues are being managed covering a period of January to December.

According to PIAC, the total ABFA available for spending in 2019 was in the region of GH¢2.7 billion, out of which GH¢1.2 billion was utilized, leaving a balance of GH¢1.5 billion unutilized.

Speaking at the launch of the report on Tuesday, June 23, 2020, Chairman of PIAC, Nobel Wadzah, highlighted the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) in 2019 supplied US$334.6 million worth of raw gas to the Ghana National Gas Company (GNGC), but no payment was received, in respect of the supplies.

“Even though PIAC has raised concerns in the past about GNPC’s quasi-fiscal financing, the Corporation continues to finance these expenditures,” Mr Wadzah lamented.

“The Corporation continues to provide guarantees for other state-owned enterprises (SOEs), amounting to US$645,511,405.40 in 2019. This is about double that of 2018, and also outweighs the Corporation’s total equity financing expenditure of US$164.79 million for 2019,” he added.

The 2019 PIAC Annual Report is being released three months later than the statutory reporting date of March 15, due to the delay in release of data by some of the reporting state agencies.

See PIAC's 2019 annual report below:



Meanwhile, energy think-tank, African Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) earlier disapproved of a proposal to make Ghana Gas, the National Gas Aggregator.

ACEP in a recent detailed analysis said the move will present risks for upstream investment and the power sector.