Investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni has strongly criticised Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML), describing the company’s fuel measurement meters as “useless” and less efficient than those already used by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
Reacting to comments by SML’s lawyer, Cephas Boyuo, Manasseh insisted that the GRA has never used SML’s meters for tax collection since the signing of the revenue assurance contract.
“SML’s measurement of petroleum volumes has never, not even for a single month, been used by the GRA to collect taxes,” he said during an interview on The Big Issue on Channel One TV.
“The meters use ultrasound technology and are installed outside the pipelines, so they don’t take accurate readings. The GRA has never used them for tax purposes.”
He further dismissed claims that SML’s meters had never failed, arguing that the devices were less efficient and therefore unfit for the purpose they were introduced.
“If you bring meters to check existing ones, logic dictates that your technology should be superior. You don’t bring in less efficient meters,” he stressed.
Citing KPMG’s audit report, Manasseh noted that SML’s meters recorded the lowest readings within the audited period, describing them as a costly venture that could have unjustly earned the company credit for Ghana’s increased mining revenue.
At a separate press briefing on Friday, November 7, SML’s lawyer, Cephas Boyuo, rejected the Office of the Special Prosecutor’s (OSP) claims that the company’s use of waybill scanning was evidence of system failure.
According to him, waybill authentication is a standard verification procedure in the petroleum downstream sector, not a malfunction
