Story: News Desk
A former Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, and two other former officials of the GRA are in custody over their roles in the SML Scandal, according to information exclusively available to manassehazure.com
The other two, according to sources at the OSP, are Dr. Isaac Crentsil, a former Commissioner of Customs, and Christian Tetteh Sottie, a former technical advisor to the Commissioner General of the GRA.
The three former GRA officials, two of whom now work for Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML), spent last night in the cells of the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), formerly BNI. They were placed in custody after they failed to meet bail conditions following their questioning and arrest by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).
The SML scandal was revealed in an investigative documentary by three former reporters of The Fourth Estate, Evans Aziamor-Mensah, Adwoa Adobea-Owusu, and Manasseh Azure Awuni, after a year’s extensive investigation into the shady operations of SML.
When the journalists confronted the company with evidence, SML could not substantiate the claims it made about the services it provided and the amount of savings it claimed to have made as a result of its operations.
The company had been paid over $141 million by the government by the end of 2023 for its contracts, which have broken several laws, including the PPA Act.
SML, which is an offshoot of a timber company, was formed on Valentine’s Day in 2017, a month after the Akufo-Addo administration took office, and has since enjoyed several sweetheart deals from the GRA and the Ministry of Finance.
The SML scandal is one of the reasons the Special Prosecutor has declared Ken Ofori-Atta wanted over suspected corruption and corruption-related offences. Ken Ofori-Atta masterminded the consolidated SML contract in 2023, which entitled the company to over $100 million a year from the state. That contract was for five years, renewable for another five years.
The three former GRA officials in custody were among those questioned by the OSP yesterday in an ongoing probe into the contracts and operations of SML and the complicity of state officials. They played various roles in the SML contract, and some of them have now crossed carpets from the GRA to SML.
Dr. Isaac Crentsil, who was the GRA’s Commissioner of Customs at the time the GRA signed the contract with SML, is now the General Manager at SML.
He was the GRA’s Commissioner of Customs from 2017 to 2019 and was seconded to the Ministry of Finance as a technical advisor until he retires from the GRA in September 2022. Before becoming the Commissioner of Customs, Dr. Crentsil had headed the Post Clearance Audit Unit of the Customs Division of the GRA from 2015 to 2017.
Christian Tetteh Sottie, who was the technical advisor to the GRA Commissioner General at the time of the SML contract, is now the Managing Director of SML.
Also, a former head of legal at the GRA, Philip Mensah, now works with SML as the company’s legal advisor.
Another former Commissioner of the GRA, Emmanuel Kofi Nti, was also questioned by the OSP, as well as Evans Edusei, the CEO of SML.
It was during Kofi Nti’s tenure as the GRA’s Commissioner General that the SML deal was first cooked. On three separate occasions, Mr. Nti applied to the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) for approval to use the single-source procurement method to engage Strategic Mobilisation Enhancement Limited (SMEL) for audit and revenue assurance services for the GRA.
On each of the three occasions, the PPA denied the request, stating that SMEL did not have the capacity or any proven record of ever undertaking that service.
SMEL changed its name to SML, but did nothing about its smell of apparent incapacity, for which reason the PPA denied GRA’s request. The GRA proceeded to award the contracts without PPA approval.
Mr. Kofi Nti, who is reported to have appeared at the OSP looking frail, was succeeded by Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu Amoah.
Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu Amoah was the one who ratified the SML contracts that were signed without regard to the PPA law.
It was during his tenure as Commissioner General that the GRA and Ministry of Finance, on the orders of Ken Ofori-Atta, signed the consolidated contract of 2023 that expanded SML’s operations to cover the mining sector, upstream petroleum sector in addition to the company’s shady operations in the downstream oil production sector and the ports.
Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu Amoah, according to his LinkedIn profile, “has worked previously as the Managing Director and CEO of Bank of Africa in Tanzania.
“He has over 20 years of experience in Banking, having served in various roles. Previously, he served as the Managing Director and CEO for UniBank in Ghana for four years, and also Group Head of Operations for Ecobank Transnational Inc.”
The SML Scandal
As of December 2023, the government had paid more than $141 million to SML through its contracts.
In 2023, the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, directed that the scope of SML’s contract be expanded to cover the mining sectors and upstream petroleum sectors.
The contract, worth more than $100 million a year, was for an initial period of five years, subject to another five years’ renewal. It is worth more than $500 million for the first five years.
Under that deal, SML is entitled to a percentage of revenue from every litre of petroleum product one buys in Ghana. The company is also entitled to a fixed percentage of revenue from every barrel of oil produced in Ghana and a fixed percentage of revenue from every ounce of gold mined in Ghana.
It is, therefore, false the claim by SML and its defenders that the company is paid based on the recoveries it helps the government to make. The company has not made any recoveries since its operations.
Following the investigation by the three journalists and subsequent report by KPMG, the upstream and mining sector contracts have remained suspended. The government also cancelled the external price verification and transaction audit services at the port, which the KPMG report said were already being performed by the GRA.
SML, however, resumed its downstream operations in late June 2024. The then flag bearer of the NDC, John Mahama, said in 2024 that the SML deal was a fleecing of the state and indicated that an NDC government under his watch would terminate it. Six months into office, Mr. Mahama has yet to take any action on the contract.
SML has, however, embarked on an aggressive PR campaign, buying airtimes and appearing on platforms created by the University for Professional Studies-Accra (UPSA) to make false claims it could not sustain when the journalists confronted it with evidence.
SML had made false claims about its services to the state and the savings that resulted from its operations. When the journalists confronted the company with evidence, it admitted the falsehood and proceeded to delete information from its website.
First, the company had claimed that it saved the nation GHS3 billion as a result of its operations. The story had been widely published by the Ghanaian media and made it to the front page of the state-owned Daily Graphic.
The investigation proved that this was false. When confronted, the Managing Director of the Company, Christian Tetteh Sottie, admitted the information was false. He claimed the media got it wrong.
When reminded by Manasseh that the same information was on SML’s website on the morning of the interview, Mr. Sottie claimed, “I don’t know about any website matter.”
Pages 157 and 158 of the KPMG report, which was commissioned by Akufo-Addo after the investigative journalists’ report indicated that SML played no role in the increase in volumes or revenue in the downstream sector during its operations.
For instance, the GRA and SML claimed that the downstream petroleum sector started recording high volumes of up to 400 million litres a month because of SML’s operations. However, the KPMG report shows that that figure was already being recorded in 2019, and that SML recorded the lowest figures when the company came on board.
