The Member of Parliament for Akuapem North, Hon. Sammi Awuku, says he will petition both the Minister for Transport and the International Maritime Organization over the handling of the vessel MV Sankofa, which passed through Ghana’s regulatory system last year despite being declared unseaworthy.
In a statement published on his Facebook page, the MP said he would write to Hon. Joseph Bukari Nikpe, the sector minister responsible for the Ghana Maritime Authority, and to the GMA Governing Board.
His requests, according to the statement, 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 Organization. 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.
The statement recounts that the Ghana Navy intercepted MV Sankofa off Axim on 22 July 2025 with its Automatic Identification System switched off. A GMA inspection report dated 27 July 2025 recorded fourteen missing statutory certificates and the absence of an oil record book, garbage record book and sewage holding tank. São Tomé and Príncipe, the purported flag state, denied ever registering the vessel. The Authority concluded that it was not seaworthy.
The US$1 million statutory penalty was later waived, with GMA explaining that a subsequent inspection found no evidence the vessel had been trading in Ghana. The MP said that explanation does not resolve the matter.
The vessel was allowed to leave Ghana on 14 November 2025, reportedly under Cameroonian registration, and was later detained in Senegal in connection with a drug investigation while reportedly flying the Ghanaian flag.
“Ghana cannot shrug at this and then wonder why its flag reportedly appears on a vessel detained in a drug investigation in Dakar,” Hon. Awuku wrote.
