The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) is seeking collaboration with accountability institutions in the country to bring to book persons who mismanage oil revenues.
If the collaboration is sealed, the committee would forward documents on mismanagement to the accountability institutions for further investigation and possible prosecution.
Dr Steve Manteaw, Chairman of the committee, who disclosed this at a forum with representatives of Queenmothers in Accra yesterday said, PIAC had received positive responses so far.
The two-day forum is the first platform on which the PIAC is meeting with them since it was set up.
It was to enlighten them on PIAC’s mandate and seek their support as the tenure of their nominee on the committee ends.
He said, the committee had engaged with the Office of the Auditor–General and the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) and would soon meet with the Special Prosecutor.
Other institutions, the committee intend to team up with are the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Bureau of National Investigations(BNI) and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of Police.
Dr Manteaw said, the collaboration was part of steps it was taking to move from monitoring and disclosures to accountability as it did not have prosecutorial powers.
As a proactive measure, he said the committee would, henceforth, inform beneficiary communities of oil revenue projects as soon as they were announced in the budget so they could monitor and ensure they were well executed.
He expressed worry that more than 50 projects across the country funded with oil revenue, for some years now, were non-existent or shoddily done.
He said the committee would maintain its objectivity and called on Queen mothers to support its activities, noting that posterity would judge them if they failed in their mandate.
The Secretary of the National Queen mother’s Association, Kansawunche V. Azara Bukari commended the PIAC for enlightening them on their activities and called for transparency in the use of oil revenue.
The Queen mother, who is also the President of the Northern Regional Queen Mothers’ Association, urged all queen mothers to support PIAC to protect the public purse.
The Queen mothers were taken through PIAC and Petroleum Revenue Management Act, Petroleum Resource Management, PIAC Project Inspections. A new nominee would be selected amongst them, to join the committee.
By Jonathan Donkor