Low commitment to beneficial ownership disclosure
Ghana’s attempt to unveil the true owners of businesses in the country through legislation has been received with low commitment, the Co-Chair of the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI), Dr Steve Manteaw has said.
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Rather, attempts to introduce the Beneficial Ownership Disclosure clause in both the Companies Act and Exploration and Production (E&P Bill), he said, was met with opposition and has subsequently being expunged from it.
Dr Manteaw explained on the sidelines of an extractive training for journalists by the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ) in partnership with GIZ that, the low commitment towards establishing a beneficial ownership roadmap had the chance of affecting its chances of passing the review.
“Ghana is due for another review in September, and we are praying that at least we will go through but the signs we are seeing now is not encouraging. It shows that we have still not shown any commitment to beneficial ownership disclosure,” he said.
According to him, the country had two opportunities to provide the legal basis to demand for beneficial ownership information, through the Companies Act amendment and the Exploration and Production (E&P) Bill.
“The Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) drew our attention to take advantage of the review to include beneficial ownership as part of information to be collected by the Registrar General, but that recommendation apparently was rejected. The current amendment bill before parliament does not include a provision on beneficial ownership disclosure,” he said.
Regarding the E&P, he said, although the revised one made a provision for contract transparency which included beneficial ownership disclosure, it had also been taken out.
“Again at the committee level, somehow contract transparency remained so there will be openness in contracting, we will have access to information on the contract but the beneficial ownership disclosure bit has been taken out,” he said.
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No legal basis
Several civil society organisations have raised concerns about the inability of citizens to know the real owners of companies that are contracted to own oil blocks.
The push for the inclusion of the beneficial ownership disclosure bit was therefore to help know the “faceless” individuals who often hide behind others and yet enjoy the full benefits of these contracts.
The absence of this information therefore means that there will be no legal basis to demand for beneficial ownership information from companies who come into the country to do business.
“And without the law any company can actually go to court and challenge you on the legal basis for you demanding such information because it is not in any of our laws,” he said.
Towards a roadmap
All EITI implementing countries are expected to agree and establish a roadmap on how to roll out the beneficial ownership regime.
At its global conference in Peru earlier this year, implementing countries were given up to January 2017 to adopt a road map to establishing a Beneficial Ownership Disclosure regime; and up to January 2020 to have a Beneficial Ownership Disclosure regime in place.
Ghana, in collaboration with the Open Government Partnership (OGP), has started the process with initial discussions among state and non-state actors on how to come up with an effective roadmap.
“Beneficial ownership is one of the things we need to do. Ghana has undergone a peer review once in 2012 and we performed reasonably, as a result of which sanctions were imposed on Ghana,” Dr Manteaw explained.