The Ghana Audit Service has uncovered corruption risks in the financial and regulation of Ghana’s downstream petroleum sector (led) by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) in a ‘Special Audit’ report.
The report, although rushed through a two months period, instead of the standard nine months required for such a report, came out with some findings which exposed gaps in NPA regulatory supervision.
This included the distribution of an estimated 87 million litres of petrol without fuel marking in 2025.
The findings were presented by Assistant Director of the Performance and Special Audit Department at the Ghana Audit Service, Kwabena Safoh-Sarkwa, at a media training workshop organised in Accra on Monday, September 28, 2026, by the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) in partnership with the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) and Transparency International–Ghana (TI-Ghana).
The workshop was organised to strengthen journalists’ capacity to report on the Performance Audit Report of the Auditor-General on the operations of the NPA and to enhance public understanding of the audit findings and recommendations.
It formed part of a project titled “An Anti-Corruption Initiative for Enhancing Governance and Accountability”, which seeks to promote transparency, accountability and effective governance through strengthened media reporting and public engagement.
Although, the report uncovered several discrepancies, the Audit Service acknowledged the remarkable corrective posture of the Authority and efforts being made to implement the recommendations of the Auditor-General in the the report.
Consequently, Mr. Safoh-Sarkwa said the performance audit, released in June 2026, identified weaknesses in the licensing of Bulk Road Vehicles (BRVs), tracking of petroleum product movements, fuel marking and monitoring of fuel outlets.
According to the Audit Service, the weaknesses could undermine public safety, fuel quality and the collection of taxes and petroleum-related revenues.
The audit found that only 2,514, representing 51.3%, of 4,904 petrol and diesel bulk road vehicles had valid licences as of April 9, 2026.
Although licences expire on December 31 and operators are granted a grace period until March 31, auditors who inspected 25 BRVs at depots and fuel stations in March 2026 found that nine were operating with expired licences.
The vehicles had not been deactivated from the NPA’s electronic system, with the Authority extending the deadline on the grounds that deactivation could disrupt fuel supplies.
The auditors said the arrangement meant unauthorised tankers could continue transporting petroleum products without adequate assurance that they met requirements intended to protect fuel quality and public safety.
The audit also identified gaps in the tracking of petroleum product movements. Of 1,092,440 trips recorded between 2023 and 2025, 1,043,753 were tracked, leaving 48,678 trips untracked.
Although the number of untracked trips declined from 35,249 in 2023 to 8,099 in 2024 and 5,330 in 2025, the Audit Service noted that aviation turbine kerosene and naphtha were excluded from the tracking system because they did not attract margins under the Uniform Petroleum Pricing Fund (UPPF).
The auditors said the exclusion was contrary to Legislative Instrument 2251, which requires the tracking of all petroleum products.
The audit further recorded 544 UPPF-margin deliveries that were missed in 2023 during the transition from the vehicle tracking system to the electronic cargo tracking system.
It also identified 582 fuel diversions involving 9.78 million litres of petrol and diesel in 2024 and 2025. However, all 25 BRVs inspected by the auditors had functioning tracking devices and electronic seals.
A major concern was the discrepancy between the volume of petroleum products marked and the volume distributed.
Between 2023 and 2025, 15,416.8 million litres of petrol and diesel were marked, compared with 15,054.2 million litres distributed, resulting in a variance of 362.6 million litres, representing 2.35%.
The annual differences were 83.1 million litres in 2023, 214.5 million litres in 2024 and 64.9 million litres in 2025.
According to the auditors, although the NPA’s Quality Assurance Directorate and UPPF Secretariat conducted checks, neither unit compared the total volumes marked with the volumes distributed.
For petrol alone in 2025, 3,011.2 million litres were marked, while 3,098.6 million litres were distributed. The difference resulted in approximately 87 million litres being distributed without marking.
The auditors estimated that the discrepancy represented a potential UPPF loss of GH¢78.6 million for 2025, in addition to possible tax revenue losses.
The Audit Service warned that the absence of marking could also expose consumers to substandard petroleum products because such products could not be traced through marker testing.
The audit also found that $2,688.09 was paid to National Tracking Limited (NTL) for the marking of 638,500 litres of petrol between 2023 and 2024, although the volume was never distributed.
Between 2023 and 2025, the Authority conducted 87,944 monitoring visits out of 88,678 planned visits. The auditors observed that planned monitoring visits declined by 19.8% during the period, while the number of licensed petroleum outlets increased by 1.3%.
The audit further found that only 3,443 of the targeted 4,000 Automatic Tank Gauging Systems had been installed by March 2026, leaving 557 outstanding.
Of the outlets with the systems installed, only 1,813 were fully automated, while 1,630 were partially automated because of issues including missing forecourts, faulty pumps and unreliable power supply.
At 23 sampled outlets with installed automatic tank gauging systems, 11 were found to be non-functional because of breakdowns, power-related damage and poor configuration.
The auditors also raised concerns over GH¢648.62 million in lump-sum payments to RASL between January 2023 and May 2026, saying there was no evidence that maintenance work associated with the payments had been verified.
The report said broken components had also remained unrepaired since the systems were introduced.
The Audit Service identified instances in which fuel quality concerns emerged despite existing regulatory controls.
At an outlet in Zuarungu, Bolgatanga, a marker test conducted on August 18, 2023, was passed. Six days later, however, a consumer reported water in the fuel, and the NPA subsequently confirmed about 180 litres of water in the tank.
At Kanvili in Tamale, water contamination was reported in diesel after 36,000 litres had already been sold, preventing a marker test from being conducted.
In Fijai and Nkroful in the Western Region, a driver’s vehicle engine reportedly failed in April 2025, after which petroleum products at both outlets failed marker tests.
The Audit Service said the identified weaknesses required stronger regulatory controls to ensure that petroleum products transported and sold in Ghana complied with quality, safety and revenue requirements.
The findings raise questions about the effectiveness of existing systems for licensing petroleum tankers, tracking product movements, monitoring fuel outlets and reconciling marked products with volumes distributed.
The media training provided participating journalists with insights into the audit process, findings, and recommendations concerning the operations of the NPA, with emphasis on effective reporting and follow-up on the implementation of recommendations contained in the Auditor-General’s report.
