Government will utilise resources to improve living standards

Accra, Dec. 2, GNA - Government on Thursday explained that its proposal to use part of the oil revenue for development was a demonstration of its commitment to utilise the country's resources to improve the living standards of Ghanaians.

Addressing a press conference on the Management of Oil Revenue in Accra, Mr Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, Deputy Minister of Information, said government's offer to amend Clause 5 of the draft Petroleum Revenue Management Bill to allow the State to use part of the revenue to develop the country was in line with the best practices in the world. "Government, after some considerations of best practices in the world over and extensive discussions, wishes to re-state its preference for a development now, rather than perish today and leave cash behind philosophy, which is what our opposition groups and some others have been championing," he said.

However, Mr Okudzeto-Ablakwa denied that government was seeking to use the entire oil revenue including the Heritage Fund to secure loans. He said Clause 5 of the draft Bill prohibited the use of assets of the Petroleum Account to provide credit to the Government, public agencies, private sector entities or any other person or entity and should not be used as collateral for debts or other liabilities of any other entity. In addition, the bill does not allow borrowing against petroleum reserves by the Government.

Mr Okudzeto-Ablakwa said government was seeking amendment of the clause because it disallowed completely the use of any portion of the oil revenue to secure loans.

"The amendment being sought is therefore to allow for the use of revenue outside of the heritage fund to secure loans for investment in infrastructure," he said.

"It is also important to understand that the amendment we are seeking would not affect the reserves which is the underground stock." The Deputy Minister of Information said government was only asking for additional resources to be used only on infrastructure and not on recurrent expenditure, adding that the issue was how the funds were utilised to benefit the people and not the prevention of its usage. He said since the cost of development was on the increase; it was only prudent that government tackled the urgent infrastructural gap through such investments now than in the future.