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IMANI Africa has finally conceded that it made a grievous mistake during its recent press conference by claiming that Fueltrade Ltd is owned by the chief executive officer of Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, Dr K K Sarpong, and his family.

IMANI Africa has finally conceded that it made a grievous mistake during its recent press conference by claiming that Fueltrade Ltd is owned by the chief executive officer of Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, Dr K K Sarpong, and his family.

On 25 April, at a press conference where it made a number of unsubstantiated allegations with regard to the operations of Aker Energy and the Deepwater Tano Cape Three Points (DWT/CTP) block, the vice-president of the policy think tank, Kofi Bentil, said that Dr Sarpong and his family owned Fueltrade Ltd.

Fueltrade holds a 2 per cent interest in the DWT/CTP petroleum agreement as the local partner of Aker Energy Ltd.

Ostensibly seeking to suggest that Dr Sarpong had influenced the deal to favour “his company”, Mr Bentil concluded that the GNPC chief executive had placed himself in a conflict of interest situation.

Adamant

After making what it now describes as “injurious statements”, Mr Bentil and IMANI remained resistant to calls to retract the statement, even after the incontrovertible facts had been presented to them about the ownership of Fueltrade Ltd.

“I wish to state emphatically that neither I nor my family own Fueltrade as claimed by IMANI Ghana,” Dr Sarpong insisted in a statement. He further demanded “a retraction of the said claim and an unreserved apology” from IMANI and its vice-president.

Fueltrade Ltd also made it clear in another release that the GNPC chief executive officer is not the owner of the company. Fueltrade demanded a retraction of the claim and an apology.

No apology

But Kofi Bentil maintained that he and IMANI had done nothing wrong and so would not render an apology.

“It was notoriously being whispered at every point that Dr K K Sarpong seems to have some control of Fueltrade and when we checked we did not see Dr K K Sarpong’s name in the directors of Fueltrade.
“But we were presented with quite a bit of information that he had significant control and the insinuation was that there may be some beneficial ownership or something of that sort,” Mr Bentil said in a radio interview.

“Now our checks did not confirm that to us. That is why we used the word carefully: ‘That it is alleged that Dr Sarpong has some control or members of his family could have some control.’

“To that extent we wanted him to clarify. That is the word we used so we did not accuse Dr Sarpong. We rather gave him the chance because of the whispering that had been going on which some people know that he should please clear himself.

“Mr Sarpong has come to clear himself. That is fine. If anybody raises his name, we can refer to Dr Sarpong’s own denial of his control; then we can move on from there. I’ve said a lot to explain that there’s nothing to apologise for,” he insisted.

U-turn

But finally, Mr Bentil, a legal practitioner, and IMANI, have admitted that they made “injurious statements”, and have apologised “unreservedly” to the GNPC boss and Fueltrade Ltd accordingly.

In a three-paragraph press statement titled “Retraction and Apology to Dr KK Sarpong and Fueltrade Limited”, the think tank further retracted the statements.

“Kofi Bentil and IMANI Africa issue this statement and unreservedly retract and apologise to Dr K K Sarpong and Fueltrade Ltd for injurious statements made at IMANI Africa’s April 25 forum,” the press statement said.

“In the said forum, as we laid out issues over a 21-slide presentation aimed at bringing focus to some pertinent issues in Ghana’s young oil industry, one of the slides mentioned Dr K K Sarpong and Fueltrade in ways they disapproved of, for which Dr Sarpong and Fueltrade have demanded a retraction and apology.

“We therefore apologise unreservedly and retract same,” it concluded.