Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) owes the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) GH4.6 million, according to Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, CEO of the NPA, who has notified the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament.
When it was his chance to speak in response to concerns mentioned in the 2019 Auditor-Report General's about the NPA, the CEO made the admission on Friday during the PAC's meeting in Accra.
In the report, it is stated that the auditors were unable to verify the presence and accuracy of the account receivable balances. For example, third-party confirmation from TOR said that its balance was GH6,884,099.23 due from NPA, whereas NPA supplied a balance of GH4,648,450.75 due from TOR.
It added that, as was confirmed by the balances the two organisations reported as of December 31, 2017, there was an insurmountable discrepancy between the outstanding amounts in the accounts of NPA and TOR.
It stated that receivables balances were significant to the financial statements and might thus have an impact on the users' economic decisions made in reliance on the financial accounts.
The Report recommended the Authority to make sure that the NPA and TOR and other entities that make up the receivables were properly reconciled, and that proof of such balances was quickly made available to the Auditors.
"As far as they are concerned, we needed to offset what the Government owed them with what they owed us, but our response as per this letter stated Our response to that, as stated in a letter we sent to the Public Accounts Committee, is that we are not accountable for covering under-recoveries.
"The Ministry of Finance is in charge of paying under-recoveries, thus they cannot ask us to offset what the Government owes them with what we owe them.
As far as we are concerned, between 2014 and 2017, according to our books, they owed us GHC 4,648,450.75.
He reiterated that TOR had since acknowledged that they owed GH4,648,450.75 to the Authority.
Dr. Abdul-Hamid informed the Committee that the GH6,884,099.23 that TOR had at first alleged the Authority owed them was really money owing to the Refinery by the Government.
The information provided by the NPA CEO was not available to the auditors at the time of the audit, according to Dr. James Klutse Avedzi, the chairman of PAC.
The Auditors informed the PAC of the latest situation and stated that the debt now stood at GH4,648,450.75 after TOR and NPA's reconciliation.
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