Ghana earned over $847 million from oil export

Ghana earned a total of 846,767, 184 million dollars from petroleum export for 2013.

This brings the cumulative earnings of the country from the petroleum export since 2011 to 1.833 billion dollars.

Ghana’s earnings from the petroleum export is shared between the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation and the Ghana Petroleum Fund, while and the rest is used to support the budget.

The amount used to support the budget is used to support agricultural modernization, roads and infrastructure development, payment of loans and interest on loans contracted for the energy sector, and capacity-building for the energy sector.

These disclosures were made by Major Ablor Quarcoo, Chairman of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), at the comiittee's public meeting on the management of the petroleum revenue of the country in Koforidua.

The meeting, the fifth regional meeting of the committee, was to inform the people in the Eastern Region about the amount that the country earned from its petroleum exploitation, and how it was used.

The committee is made of nominees of 13 professional associations and independent institutions, including the Ghana Journalists Association, the Trade Union Congress, Institute of Charted Accountants, Ghana Bar Association, National House of Chiefs, Ghana Queen mother Association, the Christian Groups, the Moslem Group and others established by law to monitor the use of the petroleum revenue of the country by the government on behalf of the people of Ghana.

Mr Yaw Owusu Addo, a member of the committee, uged Ghanaians to show interest in the work of the committee, and support it to help the country to get things right from the start, because the nation's revenue would grow to become bigger, and if not well managed, it could lead to confusion and war, as is being experienced in other sister African countries.

He said the current revenue is from the exploitation of just one well, out of the 24 wells that had been discovered from Axim to Keta.

Mr Owusu-Addo said, all being well, next year, the country would start the exploitation of a second oil well.

Mr Kwame Jantuah, a member of the committee, called for the building of more human resources capacity for the oil and gas industry, because research had proved that, about 75 percent of the land mass of the country is a potential future oil mines.

He said the current position of the country calls for effective land use planning.

In a speech read on his behalf, Mr Antwi-Boasiako Sekyere, Eastern Regional Minister, called on the business community in the region to take active interest in the recently passed Local Content Legislative Instrument, to take advantage of the opportunities available for Ghanaians in the oil and gas industry.

The New Juaben Municipal Chief Executive, Dr Kweku Owusu Acheampong, expressed his appreciation of the meeting, because he said, often , the discussions on the air waves on the earnings of the country from the oil and gas and its usage are not based on facts and the wrong messages are often put up to incite the citizenry against duty bearers.