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A Private Legal Practitioner, Martin Kpebu, has waded into discussions on the audit report of Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML) and Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), conducted by KPMG upon the request of President Akufo-Addo.

Mr Kpebu believes former Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta should be arrested and prosecuted for allegedly causing financial loss to the state.

To him, considering the discrepancies in the SML deal with GRA, it is imperative to put the former finance minister and some SML officials behind bars as punitive measures for leading the country to lose funds through what he describes as "an alleged slimy deal."

Speaking in an interview on Joy News, the anti-corruption and human rights lawyer stated that, the damning nature of the KPMG audit report requires the incarceration of some persons who played roles in getting the contract through to its execution.

“I have seen parts of the audit report which states that SML didn’t deliver so we need to quantify how much we lost and hold Ofori-Atta and the other officials involved for this loss,” he told host Aisha Ibrahim.

Martin Kpebu added that, it will be better for the government to cancel the contract between SML and GRA stating that, per the report released, SML failed to deliver on its mandate, hence, the contract should be terminated immediately.

“We need to terminate this agreement, because in law, when an agreement is void, public agencies shouldn’t pay money,” he said.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed from the audit conducted by KPMG that (SML) was paid GH¢720 million out of GH¢2.45 billion revenue collected from the Energy Sector Levy Act (ESLA) under its revenue mobilisation transaction with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).

Per the SML report, the amount was raised between May 1, 2020 and December 31, 2023.

The revenue, thereby, translates to 1.70 billion litres for the said period with an average of 38.6 million litres per month.

From the KPMG report, GRA and SML asserted that the commencement of the contract by SML led to an increment in volume liftings and tax revenue of GH¢12.98 billion for the aforementioned period.

The audit report revelead, "based on analysis using ESLA reported liftings as the pre-SML, the incremental reported volume that is attributable to the involvement of SML is determined as 1.70 billion litres for the period. This works out to a monthly average of 38.6 million litres per month."

“The incremental revenue that is attributable to the involvement of SML is GH¢2.45 billion for the period. The fee of GH¢720 million paid to SML for the same period constitutes 29.41% of the incremental tax revenue.”