Ghana’s petroleum oversight body is renewing a long-running challenge to the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) over its use of oil revenues to fund the country’s maritime boundary dispute with Côte d’Ivoire, as newly released figures reveal the corporation has now spent nearly 15 million United States dollars on the matter since the litigation began.
The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) raised the issue as far back as 2017, when it flagged that GNPC had spent 3.8 million dollars on secretariat and litigation-related activities connected to the case before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). That dispute, which Ghana ultimately won, was a matter between two sovereign states — and PIAC argued then, as it does now, that a national oil company had no business footing the bill.
“The ITLOS dispute was between two sovereign states and not between a sovereign state and a national oil company, for which reason it was wrong to have used GNPC’s resources to settle the cost of the litigation,” PIAC has consistently maintained, calling for the original 3.8 million dollars to be refunded to GNPC.
PIAC’s 2025 Annual Report reveals that despite this long-standing demand, the 3.8 million dollars has not been refunded. Moreover, spending has continued to accumulate. The report shows that in 2025 alone, GNPC spent an additional 168,073.62 dollars under the Maritime Boundary Special Project, bringing the cumulative total to approximately 14.97 million dollars as of December 2025. The funds are being channelled through the Ghana Boundary Commission, the state body formally tasked with managing such boundary-related issues.
GNPC has defended its position, arguing that payments under the Maritime Boundary Special Project form part of its annual work programme, which is approved by Parliament. The corporation’s view is that protecting Ghana’s petroleum-rich offshore boundaries is directly connected to its operational mandate and long-term viability as a company. PIAC acknowledged GNPC’s argument but maintained its disagreement, noting that the Ghana Boundary Commission already has a mandate and its own budget to handle such matters.
The dispute sits at the heart of a broader governance question about the appropriate boundaries of a national oil company’s mandate. If GNPC can fund sovereign legal battles on the grounds that such battles protect its resource base, the precedent could justify an expanding range of expenditures well beyond the core mandate of petroleum exploration, development, and production.
For PIAC, the concern is ultimately about accountability. Petroleum revenues flow into the Petroleum Holding Fund (PHF) and are allocated according to a defined legal framework. Allowing a national oil company to channel those funds into state functions that properly belong to government risks eroding the fiscal discipline that the revenue management framework was designed to enforce. With cumulative spending now approaching 15 million dollars and no resolution in sight, the debate is unlikely to be settled without a clear legislative or executive determination of where GNPC’s mandate ends and sovereign state responsibility begins.
