Expectations for Ghana’s oil too high - Expert

…Worth only $50 per person per annum

As many Ghanaians eagerly expect the commencement of commercial drilling of oil in the Jubilee fields by 2011 to bring economic salvation to the country, some experts have said that these aspirations would be short-lived when the realities begin to dawn on the nation with the oil flow.

These experts have therefore called on the Government of Ghana and other opinion leaders, especially politicians, to work extra hard to manage the exceptionally high expectations of people concerning the oil find in the country.

Keith Myers, an Oil and Gas analyst, states that Ghana’s oil is not as huge as it is in other places and thinks peoples’ expectations are just too high. Dr Keith Myers, a consultant for Revenue Watch Institute (RWI), an international Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) made this observation at the opening of a three-day workshop on oil and gas for some selected Members of Parliament (MPs) at Sogakope in the Volta Region.

The West African country will commence commercial production of oil with an initial output of 120,000 barrels per day. From a series of complex calculations, experts at the three-day workshop arrived at an expected $50 per person annually in oil revenue.

Dr Keith Myers said the oil find therefore “is not going to be enough to transform anyone’s life,” as widely expected.

Oxfarm an International NGO earlier in the year projected that Ghana’s oil would flow for just between 20 and 30 years, calling for prudent investment on the part of government from oil proceeds. The German Technical Corporation also projects the country could reap $1 billion dollars in annual receipts from the jubilee fields.

A number of international observers have lauded the fact that the Ghanaian Government per se appears to be exercising some caution, for which reason it has not based its economic development programmes on projected oil revenues. But many of its citizens have hoped for an end to the country’s economic challenges with the drilling of oil.

Some expect oil prices in the downstream sector to fall flat with the drilling of Ghana’s own oil, an expectation several experts have played down with the explanation that oil prices are determined on the international oil markets. Minister of Energy, Dr. Joe Oteng Agyei is on record to have advocated that Ghana must rather follow the example of Trinidad and Tobago which rather used the natural gas resources to develop the productive sectors of the economy, from which the nation derives maximum returns.

In a brief remark, Angela Mugore, Program Officer for Training and Capacity Building at Revenue Watch Institute praised the Parliamentary Center for such a visionary program and also allowing RWI to partner the Center.

She said RWI aims at helping increase parliamentary effectiveness in resource-rich countries through capacity building programs ‘‘to enhance legislators’ and parliamentary staffs’ ability to assimilate complex information relating to their countries’ extractive industries.’’

According to her, RWI would within the next two years focus its projects on providing technical knowledge and skills in the Extractive industry. This, the Institution would like to achieve, through the provision of technical assistance and training workshops.

Adams Fusheini, programs officer at the Parliamentary Centre expressed his centre’s appreciation to GTZ and ROWI for their partnering role, hoping that the cooperation would continue.

He however advised the Parliamentarians to be bi-partisan in their discussions of the National Petroleum Regulatory bill when it comes before them.

‘‘Efforts should be made from the word-go not to create divided positions on the political front regarding the use of revenues from the sector since it has the potential of fuelling entrenched group interests that may work against the national agenda,’’ he said.

He also called on them to encourage transparency and accountability on the part of National authorities and political actors to avoid making promises to groups outside the national framework.

The aim of the workshop, organised by the Parliamentary Centre with funding from the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and RWI, was to enable the MPs understand very well the complex nature of the industry and also to build their capacity to enable them scrutinize very well the National Petroleum Regulatory bill when it comes before Parliament.

Key members of Parliament at the training workshop include Alfred Agbesi, Kan Dapaah, Dr. Anthony Osei-Akoto, and Maxwell Kofi Jumah. Most of them expressed their gratitude to the sponsors of the workshop, saying that it has equipped them for their policy engagements.