Recently, there have been concerns raised by some Ghanaians about the propriety of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), the national oil company (NOC), contracting a loan of US$700 million without parliamentary approval. Others have doubted GNPC’s capacity to spend the loan efficiently and for the right purpose. As part of our oil governance work, ACEP has analyzed the matters involved and can state that the concerns expressed do not only border on constitutionality but also expose the character of NOCs that operate with opacity. We have been studying GNPC for sometime now especially following the commencement of oil production from the Jubilee fields, and we are confident to express that we have seen the corporation make progress in shedding off the secrecy that characterized its past operations. However we have observed with worry that the recent case of avoiding parliamentary scrutiny in securing the loan facility for its capital programme somehow reminds us that GNPC is not far from following the path of NOCs that are poorly governed, have become cash cows for politicians, and have brought heavy financial burden on their countries. Ghana is a democratic state and the least we could do is make GNPC a model of a modern NOC, which can combine sound commercial operations with good governance.