The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for the Bongo constituency, Edward Bawa has said the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was not given proper briefing on the contaminated fuel scandal that hit the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST).

President Akufo-Addo for the first time spoke on the BOST issue during his encounter with journalists on Tuesday and said there was no wrongdoing.

But speaking on Eyewitness News on Wednesday, Edward Bawa who insisted that whole deal breached the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) Act argued that the Akufo-Addo lost a great opportunity to dissociate himself from the scandal.

“If you look at this current activity, it bordered on distribution, marketing and sale. So I was surprised that the President was not aware that the NPA Act has a position that covers that and that was an Act that was breached. And indeed it was because of the infringement of this portion of the Act that the NPA itself in its statement when the issue broke indicated that the actors of this particular issue have breached sections of the Act and therefore they were contemplating even punishing them.”

“So that was the part that we realized that the President was ill-informed, he didn’t know the facts, and to a very large extent he lost the greatest opportunity to dissociate himself from this scandal that is smelly in this country,” he added.

Background

BOST has been heavily criticized for selling 5 million litres of contaminated fuel to two unlicensed companies, Movepiina and Zup Oil, which were allegedly set up few days before the sale making Ghana lose about GHc 7 million in revenue.

The Minister of Energy who tasked a committee to investigate the issue subsequently cleared BOST and its Managing Director, Alfred Obeng Boateng of wrongdoing citing a Bureau of National Investigation (BNI) and National Security report.

But some Ghanaians especially the Minority in Parliament complained that it was a cover up.