- ACEP Questions Value for Money in GH¢648.6m NPA Tank-Gauging Payments
The Africa Centre for Energy Policy has called for deeper scrutiny of the National Petroleum Authority’s contracting practices after an Auditor-General’s performance audit identified weaknesses in the verification of GH¢648.6m paid for an automatic tank-gauging system.
The system was intended to improve the monitoring of petroleum products at retail outlets, strengthen tax assurance and protect consumers against losses and manipulation.
But the audit found gaps between payments, installations and demonstrable operating performance, raising questions about whether the public received full value from the contract.
“The regulator has become a procurement powerhouse,” said Kodzo Yaotse, Policy Lead at ACEP.
He argued that the NPA’s expanding involvement in technology and service contracts must be accompanied by stronger verification, disclosure and accountability.
Mr Yaotse was speaking at a media workshop on the Auditor-General’s Performance Audit Report on the Operations of the NPA.
The programme was organised by the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition in partnership with ACEP and Transparency International Ghana, with funding support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
The Automatic Tank Gauging System was implemented under a US$90.7m contract covering the installation, operation and maintenance of 4,000 units.
All the units were expected to have been installed by the end of 2023. However, the audit found that 3,443 units had been installed by March 2026, leaving 557 outstanding.
More importantly, only 1,813 retail outlets had been fully automated.
The difference between installing equipment and achieving full automation is critical. A gauge physically placed at a filling station does not necessarily deliver the intended regulatory benefit if it is not connected, operational and transmitting reliable information to the NPA.
Auditors inspected 23 installed units and found that 11 almost half the sample were not functioning.
Although the sample was limited, the failure rate raises questions about the condition of the wider network and the effectiveness of the maintenance arrangements financed under the contract.
The audit also found that payments bundled installation, operation and maintenance costs. The NPA was unable to demonstrate that maintenance work had been independently verified before payments were made.
Maintenance reports for 2023 and 2024 were not produced for the audit.
“The contractor has already received their money even for the maintenance,” Mr Yaotse said.
The audit does not conclude that the contractor received payment for work it did not perform. It also does not establish corruption or quantify a financial loss.
What it establishes is a weakness in verification and documentation. That distinction is important and should not be blurred.
But the absence of a corruption finding does not dispose of the value-for-money question. If the regulator cannot demonstrate that maintenance was performed before payment, the public cannot independently determine what it received for the money spent.
ACEP’s assessment also draws attention to the relationship between installation activity and annual payments.
Installations declined sharply after 2023, when 3,029 units were fitted. The number fell to 276 in 2024, 128 in 2025 and just 10 between January and May 2026.
Payments over the corresponding periods were GH¢255.3m in 2023, GH¢199.6m in 2024, GH¢87.7m in 2025 and GH¢106m through May 2026.
Those figures cannot be compared solely on the basis of the number of new installations because the contract also covered operations and maintenance.
Nevertheless, the payment of GH¢106mn during a period in which only 10 additional units were installed makes the absence of verifiable maintenance records more consequential.
The NPA should be able to separate the amounts paid for installation, operations and maintenance and demonstrate the specific services delivered under each component.
Without that breakdown, the public sees a declining number of installations alongside continued substantial payments but lacks the information needed to determine whether the difference reflects legitimate operating costs or inadequate contract performance.
ACEP has raised a separate concern about the National Petroleum Marking Scheme.
The audit found that the marking of premium RON 95 petrol was suspended from July 4, 2025, following an internal directive.
The NPA’s reconciliation showed that 66.85mn litres of the product were subsequently sold outside the marking scheme during the second half of 2025.
The suspension has prompted questions about whether the 9-pesewa-per-litre fuel-marking charge continued to be collected from consumers even though the service had stopped.
“Why would consumers pay for a service that had stopped?” Mr Yaotse asked.
If the margin continued to be charged on all 66.85m litres, the implied amount would be approximately GH¢6.02m.
That calculation does not prove that the levy was collected or improperly retained. It indicates the financial magnitude of the question requiring clarification.
The NPA should disclose whether the margin remained in the price build-up after marking was suspended, how much was collected and whether any amounts were paid to a service provider.
The authority should also explain the reason for the suspension and the alternative controls used to protect product integrity during the period.
The NPA has previously objected to descriptions of the Auditor-General’s findings as evidence of corruption or financial loss.
It has emphasised that the audit made no such conclusions and that management responses must be included in any balanced account of the findings.
That defence is valid as far as it goes. An audit finding concerning missing documentation, weak verification or non-functional equipment should not automatically be converted into an allegation of theft.
Accountability, however, does not begin only when corruption is proven.
Public institutions are also responsible for demonstrating economy, efficiency and effectiveness. A contract can fail to deliver adequate value even where there is no evidence of criminal conduct.
The relevant question is therefore not only whether money was stolen. It is whether the NPA designed, supervised and verified the contract well enough to protect consumers and the public purse.
ACEP is also calling for greater transparency over the companies awarded petroleum-sector service contracts and their beneficial owners.
“For each contractor that has been contracted to provide a service, whether the card payment system or the fuel marking, we need to know who owns this business,” Mr Yaotse said.
Beneficial-ownership disclosure is particularly important where regulatory charges are incorporated into fuel prices and ultimately paid by motorists, transport operators and businesses.
Consumers may not see the charge as a separate payment, but they finance the system each time they purchase fuel.
The NPA should therefore publish the contracts, beneficial owners, payment schedules, performance indicators and verification reports, subject only to legitimate commercial confidentiality.
Such disclosure would allow Parliament, civil society and consumers to assess whether the contracts were competitively awarded and whether payments were linked to measurable results.
Automatic tank gauges and fuel-marking systems are not abstract technology projects.
They are intended to confirm the quantity and quality of fuel available at retail outlets, detect irregularities, protect tax revenue and reduce opportunities for diversion or adulteration.
When the equipment is not functioning, maintenance cannot be verified or a marking service is suspended without clarity over consumer charges, the weakness transfers directly to the public.
The deeper concern raised by the audit is therefore institutional.
The NPA is not only a regulator. It has become a major procurer of technology, monitoring systems and petroleum-sector services. Its internal capacity to design and supervise contracts must grow alongside that procurement role.
The authority can answer the questions raised by publishing the missing maintenance records, explaining the payment structure, providing the status of all installed gauges and accounting for the fuel-marking margin during the suspension.
Until then, the unresolved question is straightforward: were consumers paying for regulatory protections that the regulator itself could not fully verify?
