{"id":225773,"date":"2016-06-27T09:40:44","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T09:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=225773"},"modified":"2016-06-27T09:40:44","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T09:40:44","slug":"piac-does-not-need-prosecution-powers-acep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/06\/piac-does-not-need-prosecution-powers-acep\/","title":{"rendered":"PIAC does not need prosecution powers – ACEP"},"content":{"rendered":"
The African Centre for Energy Policy, ACEP, says it disagrees with calls for the Public Interest and Accountability Committee, PIAC, to be given prosecution powers despite continuous instances of financial misappropriation of the country\u2019s oil revenue.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”C4Vebc8m2cDbf4XEVYu8Scq8mPQk39g5″]ACEP believes extending the mandate of PIAC to prosecute defaulters will rather overburden the committee in exposing instances of misallocation of revenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not think that PIAC needs powers what they need is continue to do what they are doing and probably strengthen them to do it better. The law that set them up recognizes PIAC as an advisory committee to Parliament so whatever report they issue they have to hand over to Parliament for action to be taken,\u201d Deputy Director of ACEP, Benjamin Boakye remarked.<\/p>\n
The call for more powers to the PIAC was brought to the fore during the launch of the 2015 Annual report of the Committee.<\/p>\n
It also follows the apparent recurrence of some irregularities due to the delays in the implementation of recommendations.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Boakye explains to Citi Business News<\/strong> granting such powers will interfere in Parliament\u2019s role of ensuring that it protects the public coffers.<\/p>\n \u201cParliament has the PAC that can look at the report and call people to question them so the modalities are clear I do not think we should add unto the work of PIAC beyond engaging the public and picking feedback and alerting government on what the wrongs are in relative to the management of our resources,\u201d he further noted.<\/p>\n Key findings on activities of GNPC<\/strong><\/p>\n Notable among the findings of the 2015 annual report by PIAC included inconsistencies with the financial activities in the management of budgetary allocation and the Annual Budget Funding Amount by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and the Ministry of Finance respectively.<\/p>\n