The Centre for Environmental Management and Sustainable Energy has petitioned the Economic and Organised Crime Office to investigate what it describes as suspicious fuel sales data and possible financial irregularities involving Life Energy and some of its retail outlets.
Speaking in an interview on ABC in the Morning, the Executive Director of CEMSE, Benjamin Nsiah, said the organisation’s analysis of publicly available data from the National Petroleum Authority revealed what he termed “super miraculous” sales figures that raise serious red flags.
“We took the NPA public data and realised that an OMC like Life Energy was making some super miraculous sales, which we think can only come through certain malpractices—either by diverting the product from its destination or doing something unusual,” he stated.
According to CEMSE, an analysis of petroleum lifting and sales records for August 2025 showed that Life Energy reportedly lifted about 5.5 million litres of fuel from Rock Africa Limited. The organisation further claimed that four of the company’s outlets—located in Sefwi Osei Kojokrom, Sefwi Debiso, Sefwi Yawmatwa, and Dormaa Ahenkro—each recorded identical monthly sales of approximately 1.38 million litres.
Nsiah questioned the plausibility of these figures, noting that the communities involved are largely peri-urban or rural with relatively low population densities.
“The issue is that these communities are peri-urban or rural communities… yet they are doing an average of about 1.3 million litres a month. That looks very suspicious because the industry average should be around 80,000 to 140,000 litres,” he explained.
He added that such volumes would require daily sales exceeding 44,000 litres per outlet—levels he described as commercially unrealistic for those locations.
CEMSE also raised concerns about what it calls “cross zonalization,” a practice it says could be used to exploit the Uniform Petroleum Pricing Fund.
“Cross zonalization simply means a company loads fuel from Accra or Tema to places like Sefwi or Dormaa Ahenkro, whereas industry practice requires that fuel destined for areas like Bono should be loaded from Kumasi,” Nsiah explained.
He noted that the pricing fund is designed to equalize fuel prices across the country, but warned that improper loading patterns could lead to companies unjustifiably benefiting from the fund.
“If you load from Accra to Sefwi, it means the fund will be paying you. But if the product doesn’t land in Sefwi and instead ends up in Accra, then you are benefiting from the fund at the expense of the petroleum consumer,” he alleged.
The organisation suspects that the uniformity in reported sales across the four outlets may point to possible data manipulation, fictitious reporting, or “round-tripping” of petroleum transactions. It further suggested that some of the fuel volumes may have been diverted to unauthorised markets, including potential cross-border trade.
CEMSE estimates that if the reported figures were used to claim reimbursements under the UPPF, the state could have suffered losses of up to GHS2.5 million.
Nsiah confirmed that the group has submitted its findings to both EOCO and the Office of the Special Prosecutor for further investigation.
“It’s only proper that EOCO or the OSP investigate the truth behind these numbers,” he said, expressing confidence that a thorough probe would establish whether any wrongdoing occurred.
