The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC ) has asked the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) to state emphatically what percentage of the annual revenue the corporation could spend on its corporate social investments (CSI).

According to the GNPC PIAC has in the past years petitioned parliament to set an expenditure cap on its CSI budget but has not given a figure to that effect.

General Manager, Sustainability and Stakeholder Relations at GNPC, Dr Kwame Baah-Nuako said, “The question is capped to what level? Nobody has ever given a ceiling. Meanwhile, this CSI budget goes to Parliament. They have seen the recommendation to cap in the last five years yet they have continued to approve GNPC’s budget.

It tells you that either they have seen value for money with what GNPC does, they see the impact of the spending and howe it is providing peace for oil and gas operations to take place within the Western enclave, or they simply just disagree with PIAC,” graphiconline reports.

PIAC in its 2021 annual report noted that the GNPC spent US$15.53 million , indicating 22% of its Level B receipts of US$70.54 million on sustainability and stakeholder relations and the GNPC Foundation.

However, Dr Baah-Nuako stated that the CSI is important to the corporation as it is used to protect all the assets within the oil and gas industry.

He said, “When we are negotiating the social license to operate, it is more or less a whole industry because GNPC is a partner to all of the fields of production. Whatever we do we try to protect these assets to ensure peace within the western enclave. Even if you focus on GNPC spending alone, the CSI spending is just a negligible percentage of the total assets that we are protecting.”