The Minister for Monitoring and Evaluation, Anthony Akoto-Osei, has cautioned the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) against engaging in deals outside its mandate.

His warning comes on the back of a PIAC report which revealed that the GNPC extended credit facilities to TOR and BOST.

Speaking to Starr Business, Dr. Akoto-Osei charged the Finance Ministry to put GNPC in check.

“The report indicated that GNPC has paid a debt for TOR and BOST and that is not part of its core mandate, that is why I am cautioning that we should not allow a petroleum production company to become a commercial lender and so the ministry of finance should make sure that they pay back the money and GNPC board should make it a policy that they don’t do that again,” Dr. Akofo-Osei opined.

The Old Tafo MP also revealed the FPSO Atta Mills and Kwame Nkrumah are having more challenges than anticipated.

This, he said, has serious implications for production.

“We are getting information that the FPSO Atta Mills and FPSO Kwame Nkrumah are having more structural problems than necessary and we want to caution because if they begin to have problems we will suffer the consequence of production declines as we did for 2016.”

He is afraid that the development will have dire impact on the country’s energy security if not dealt with quickly.