By Daniel Bampoe
The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has announced that it will, before the end of June 2025, file criminal charges against top officials of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) over a corruption scandal involving more than GH¢280 million.
This follows months of investigations into what the Special Prosecutor describes as a deliberate and coordinated abuse of regulatory power for private gain within Ghana’s petroleum downstream sector.
Background
The NPA, which regulates and monitors Ghana’s downstream petroleum industry, has been under scrutiny since late 2024.
In November 2024, the OSP formally began investigations into suspected acts of corruption and abuse of office involving some of the Authority’s officials after picking the information from the media.
These investigations centered on allegations that between 2022 and 2024, senior officials at the NPA manipulated their roles to extract money and favors from oil marketing companies (OMCs) under the Authority’s oversight.
Then, in February 2025, the Special Prosecutor escalated the matter by launching a full-scale investigation into the former Chief Executive of the NPA, Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, over suspicions that he was involved in the misappropriation of GH¢1.3 billion from the Unified Petroleum Pricing Fund (UPPF)—a key national fund used to stabilize fuel prices across the country.
Alongside Dr. Abdul-Hamid, three other officials were named in the preliminary investigation:
Jacob Amuah, the UPPF Coordinator,
Freda Tandoh, NPA staff, and
Wendy Ashong Newman, NPA staff.
Though the OSP has not yet confirmed whether these same individuals are among those who will be charged this month, they remain central figures in the broader investigation.
Corrupt Scheme Uncovered
Speaking at a press briefing in Accra on Monday, June 2, 2025, Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng provided key details about the scheme, without revealing the names of the suspects to be charged.
According to Kissi Agyebeng, the OSP’s investigations uncovered that the implicated NPA officials orchestrated a corrupt enterprise involving threats, bribery, coercion, and regulatory intimidation.
These officials are alleged to have extorted significant sums of money from oil marketing companies and other private entities under the NPA’s regulatory, licensing, and monitoring purview.
Between 2022 and 2024, this criminal network within the NPA allegedly used public office to secure illicit profits by exploiting their control over regulatory processes.
Kissi Agyebeng described the conduct as “a calculated use of state authority to harvest money from regulated businesses under duress.”
The OSP revealed that GH¢280,516,127.19 has so far been traced as the direct proceeds of this corrupt scheme. These funds were not simply hoarded.
According to Agyebeng, part of the money was laundered through the acquisition of real estate properties, including apartments, suites, and houses both in Ghana and overseas.
In a surprising twist, the investigation also found that the perpetrators allegedly used the proceeds to establish and operate oil marketing companies of their own, creating a direct conflict of interest by competing against the very businesses they were meant to supervise.
The money was also used to acquire 22 fuel haulage trucks, presumably to support their private petroleum operations.
Prosecution and Recovery Ahead
Agyebeng stated that the OSP will file charges against “the first batch” of perpetrators before the end of June.
The charges will not only target NPA officials but also complicit executives of oil marketing companies who are believed to have aided or benefited from the corrupt arrangement.
“Upon filing, we will provide the public with a detailed account of who did what, who acquired what, and what has been recovered so far,” the Special Prosecutor said.
The OSP’s actions are being closely watched as a critical test of Ghana’s capacity to hold powerful figures accountable and dismantle entrenched systems of corruption in state institutions.
