Majority leader, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu has registered his displeasure with expenditures made by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).
The Parliamentary Affairs Minister said the Coporation is wasting millions of cedis through activities it has not been legally mandated to undertake.
At a forum to discuss the work of Parliament Saturday, Mr Mensah-Bonsu called for “critical eyes” to be focused on GNPC in the discharge of its functions.
“When you consider the fact that about a third of our oil revenue goes [there] and somehow a lot of them gets misapplied, we should be worried as a country,” he said.
GNPC was set up in 1983 to ensure the provision of adequate supply of peteroleum products in the country but it has, for the past years, found itself funding programmes that are not related to its functions.
In 2013, the entity became the headline sponsor of the national team, Black Stars, supporting it with $3 million yearly.
Part of the amount is currently used to pay the salaries of the players, some officials of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) have said.
The Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament in April implored the Corporation to truncate its sponsorship agreement with the team but this has not been done.
With Ghana’s new status as an oil-producing country, about a third of the revenue generated from the production is channeled into activities of the GNPC.
Mr Mensah-Bonsu believes GNPC has not been judicious with the resources allocated to it and has urged a reduction in funds given the entity.
“If GNPC…has money to ferry supporters of Black Stars…at huge cost [then it has] [d] by its actions and inactions that perhaps, we have given them much more than they deserve,” he said.
The Majority is calling for a collaboration between Parliament and government to find a way to direct the attention of GNPC onto its core functions.
Although he said the Corporation may have its own reason to deserve the resources given it, he believes a determination should be made to decide when it is appropriate to “pull the [fund] plugs.”
“Perhaps not all of a sudden but to stagger in whatever we do to ensure that they sit up,” Mr Mensah-Bonsu added.