Mines and Energy Committee Tours SML Facility
The Parliamentary Committee on Mines and Energy has paid an industrial tour to the Strategic Mobilizations Limited (SML) to familiarize itself and appreciate the work it does.
The Committee of Parliament toured the Operation and Data Centre in Tema in order to report to Parliament.
They visited the Data Operation Centre where the company has a network of petroleum depots across the country and Meter Reading Centre.
Addressing the media after the meeting and tour, the Chairman of the Mines and Energy Committee, Samuel Atta Akyea, said the Committee appreciates the work of SML and learning it’s a world-class audit firm with records so far. However, the Committee will go into details since the presidency will be furnished with the report.
He was worried that some people will crucify a Ghanaian owed company which was helping mobilize revenue but throwing issues onto the public space without appreciating exactly what the company does.
The chairman commended highly the work of SML and noted that Parliament will invite the company for briefing.
He was amazed at the world class installation the Committee has come to see at first hand.
Currently, the President is awaiting the investigative audit by KPMG with a four-point referee with compliance, need for the contract, performance and the procurement process of selection of SML for the work they are doing.
Dr Yaa Serwa Sarpong PHD, Director of Support Services of SML said the company’s performance in the petroleum downstream has been enormous, stressing that all stakeholders in the industry must appreciate its work.
“The authorities representing government in the industry, that is National Petroleum Authority (NPA) and Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), before SML none of them had meters. But now through GRA initiative by contracting SML, we have brought in check meters.”
“What these check meters are doing is that, the main meters owned by the depots, so before SML the readings that were given for their tax purposes and then the trading purposes, NPA, were given by the depots and most of these depots are owned by importers of the petroleum products and at same time they owned the OMCs,” she said.
She added that the taxation petroleum audit and revenue assurance have seen double increments.
“Before SML, records show that Goverment revenue assurance with taxable Petroleum products was around 250 million liters, which is now an average of 45-48 million litters and that translates into over GHS12 billion.”
The Director revealed that the check meter SML has put in place is a strict control that is able to ensure that no drop of fuel leaves the depot without it been captured for taxation purposes and that is what SML are doing for Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to be able to achieve full potential of the tax revenue in the downstream petroleum.
Story by Nana Kwaku Boffah.
