Private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu, has raised concerns of conflict of interest following auditing firm, KPMG’s report on the multibillion contract between Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML) and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
According to him, KPMG has a close relationship with GRA which can undermine a fair, objective assessment and has therefore described the report as a whitewash.
“This KPMG report is not up to scratch, it’s just a whitewash. They haven’t done any good job at all. From day one, the writing was on the wall that KPMG was not up to the task because they couldn’t be independent enough. They have relations with GRA.
“KPMG itself does business with GRA. KPMG audits them and GRA also gives them business. So it was more like a ‘you scratch my back and I scratch your back,” he said in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM.
On January 2, 2024, President Nana Akufo-Addo directed KPMG to investigate the contract between SML and GRA, following an exposé by the Fourth Estate.
The audit findings prompted the need for a review of the revenue assurance contract, highlighting areas where improvements are necessary to enhance its effectiveness.
The report also revealed no technical needs assessment was done prior to the engagement of SML, however, such an assessment was not legally required for engaging SML.
Regarding the transaction audit services, KPMG concluded that SML partially delivered on the service requirements.
“However, given the observations made during the investigations, GRA may not have obtained all the expected benefits from the service.
“This is also partly due to GRA’s lack of instituting monitoring and evaluation processes to assess the performance of the service and hold its personnel and SML accountable for non-performance,” the report read in parts.
It added that “the total fees estimated to be paid to SML under the 2023 Contract for five years is GH¢5,173,091,857.00, which averages to about GH¢1 billion per year.”
Meanwhile, there have been calls on the government to release the full report.
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