The Member of Parliament for Akuapem North, Sammi Awuku, has called on the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) to disclose the legal basis on which it waived a US$1 million penalty imposed on the vessel, MV Sankofa, describing the authority’s explanation so far as inadequate.
According to the MP, the Ghana Navy intercepted MV Sankofa off Axim on July 22, 2025 with its Automatic Identification System switched off.
He said a GMA inspection report dated July 27, 2025 subsequently recorded what he described as serious deficiencies aboard the vessel.
According to Sammi Awuku, 14 statutory certificates were missing and that the vessel carried no oil record book, no garbage record book and no sewage holding tank.
He said São Tomé and Príncipe, the flag state the vessel purported to sail under, denied ever having registered it.
This, he said made the GMA to conclude that the vessel was not seaworthy.
He claimed that GMA initially imposed the statutory penalty of US$1 million in its cedi equivalent, but later waived it on the basis that a subsequent inspection found no evidence the vessel had been trading in Ghana.
Related article: MV Sankofa not linked to Ghana, GMA rejects Awuku’s claims
Mr Awuku said that reasoning does not settle the question. “Whether the vessel was trading is not the only relevant question,” he wrote, arguing that the records should show the legal basis on which MV Sankofa entered Tema Fishing Harbour, moved to Tema Anchorage, operated within Ghanaian waters and was eventually permitted to leave.
He also rejected any reliance on the doctrine of innocent passage as a catch-all justification.
He indicated that under international maritime law, passage must be continuous and expeditious, with stopping or anchoring permitted only in limited circumstances. If the vessel was in Ghanaian waters under some other clearance or authorisation, he said, GMA must identify it.
Missing US$60,000
The MP put three questions to the Authority: the precise legal basis, opinion or decision that authorised the waiver; the explanation for a US$60,000 discrepancy in pollution-related penalties between the inspection report and a GMA response under the Right to Information Act; and the identity of the officer who authorised the vessel’s departure from Ghana on 14 November 2025.
He said a US$60,000 gap between two official accounts of the same set of penalties is at the centre of fresh questions he has put to the Ghana Maritime Authority.
The MP said GMA’s own inspection report on the vessel MV Sankofa placed pollution-related penalties at US$139,200 and that the Authority’s response to a Right to Information request, dated June 12, 2026, gave the figure as US$79,200.
The difference, he said, has not been explained.
The discrepancy sits alongside a larger question.
He said the GMA initially imposed the statutory penalty of US$1 million in its cedi equivalent on the vessel, then waived it, explaining that a later inspection found no evidence MV Sankofa had been trading in Ghana.
He said MV Sankofa was later detained in Senegal in connection with a drug investigation and was reportedly flying the Ghanaian flag at the time, according to the statement.
“Transparency is the minimum,” the MP wrote. “Acountability must follow.”
Petition to Minister and IMO
He indicated that he will petition both the Minister for Transport and the International Maritime Organisation over the handling of the vessel MV Sankofa, which passed through Ghana’s regulatory system last year despite being declared unseaworthy.
The requests, he said will cover the legal opinion, Board decision or other authority supporting the waiver of a US$1 million penalty imposed on the vessel; a full reconciliation of the pollution-related penalties; the identity and office of the person who authorised the vessel’s departure; and the inspection and clearance records relied upon in permitting it to sail.
He said he would also write to the International Maritime Organisation.
Where a vessel purports to sail under a flag that the named state says it never granted, he argued, it raises a fraudulent registration concern of precisely the kind the IMO tracks.
The matter, he said, did not begin or end in Ghanaian waters, and the inspection findings raise serious questions under international maritime safety and pollution-control standards.
