THREE Minority Members of Parliament have filed a suit against the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) in a bid to stop its acquisition of a $700 million dollar facility loan.
Dr. A Akoto Osei, MP for Old Tafo, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh, MP for Manhyia South and Samuel Atta Akyea MP for Abuakwa South are praying the court to place an interlocutory injunction on the loan acquisition.
A motion filed by Nana Bediatuo Asante, counsel for the plaintiffs on November 25, 2014 is demanding four reliefs.
“A perpetual injunction restraining the Defendant whether by itself, contractors, workmen, agents, assigns, privies, servants and whomsoever of whatever description claiming through Defendant from contracting, securing, procuring or drawing down on a loan facility of USD 700 million or any other loan from any financial institution whether situate in Ghana or not or embarking on any project, works and programmes without prior parliamentary scrutiny and approval.”
They are also seeking a declaration that the GNPC contracting, procuring, securing or otherwise acquiring or drawing down on the loan facility or any other loan without prior approval of Parliament is unconstitutional, unlawful, null and void.
The plaintiffs want the court to uphold that the defendant’s decision to undertake a programme of projects without parliamentary approval would be against the letter of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act 2011 (Act 815) and would therefore be null and void.
Both government and GNPC have argued in defence of the latter. According to the GNPC, all it requires for a $700 million loan is approval of the Finance Minister.
