Ghana has not benefited from oil find – GIGS cries

The Ghana Institute of Governance and Security (GIGS) claims the country has not benefited enough from its oil find, 10 years on.

Speaking to Johnnie Hughes on Late Edition on 3FM 92.7 to commemorate 10 years of oil production in Ghana, Mr Solomon Kwawukume, a Senior Research Officer of GIGS accused Parliament of having integrity problem.

The Parliament of Ghana, he said, “we discovered is part of an international conspiracy to deny Ghanaians a fair share of their sovereign property in the name of attracting investment for the oil lobby money that comes their way, He said Ghana over a six year period, earned a total of 32,942,181 barrels valued at $2,894,213,645 (16.60%), while foreign oil companies drilling the oil made $14,072,835,892 (80.70%) from the 165,540,873 barrels produced.

The 4th Quarter Petroleum Receipt and Distribution Report indicates that in 2016 out of the 28,947,968 barrels of oil produced from Jubilee Field and TEN Fields, only 2,850,000 came from TEN Fields, of which Ghana had no allocation.

“Out of the balance of 26,097,968 barrels from Jubilee Field, Ghana had 4,824,417 barrels representing 16.60% of total production of the 4th Quarter of 2016. The 2016 total of $28, 947,968 barrels brought the cumulative six years total production to 198,483,054 barrels valued $17,438,125,675 at the Moving Average Price of $87.857 per barrel.”

According to GIGS, if Ghana had adopted the world standard norm, the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), without participating in the project with no cost to incur and depending on the terms, Ghana could have earned more.

“Ghana could have opted for profit only, royalty plus oil profit and royalty play oil profit and corporate taxes,” he said.

According to GIGS the new Petroleum Exploration and Production Law 919 of 2016 is “fraudulent and a robbery”, saying, “It has come to protect and consolidate the thievery going on.” We have brought “the bizarre situation to the notice of President Akufo-Addo and members of the Council of State, but are yet to receive any response … and waiting for a response,” he said but when asked what other steps they were considering, Mr KwawuKume said,

“we are preparing to take our case to the Supreme Court for arbitration.” Meanwhile, Co-chair of the Ghana Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) Dr. Emmanuel Steve Manteaw, has also said the inability of the country to properly sequence the governance frame work was the first mistake after the oil find in 2007.

He said the country didn’t do the national visioning, which couldn’t translate the vision into policy objectives.