Editorial: FPSO Wahala

The oil storage vessel, FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, which was manufactured in far away Singapore for Ghana’s Jubilee Oil Operations is bringing the nation a lot of troubles.

The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has reported about one critical problem. This has to do with the fact that the FPSO vessel’s wall metres to measure the volume of oil produced from the Jubilee Oil field are currently non-functional.

According to the GRA, the tracking devise it fitted on the FPSO to determine the volume of oil produced and generated as a resulted of the non-functioning of original metres was blocked by Tullow Oil Limited, one of the Jubilee partners which claims GRA’s device was interfering with its communication systems. The import of this is that there is no dependable system to measure the volume of oil generated from the Jubilee Oil field and Ghana is losing big time.

It is sad that oil is produced from the land that belongs to Ghanaians and there is no knowledge of the right quantity generated.

What some authorities, selfish ones indeed, have been doing when this issue comes out is to dance around it and put a lame duck assurance that the problem is being corrected.

The Ghana Standards Board has reacted and as usual assured that new metres were being procured.

When exactly? They could not tell Ghanaians. We on the Ghana Daily believe that authorities have to be answering questions than they are doing now.

Can they tell Ghanaians why they could not check the structurally functioning specifications of the multi-million dollar vessel before plunging Ghana into a deal to buy it?

Can they imagine the colossal loss Ghana has incurred ever since oil production started?

Ghana is being short-changed and the earlier we stand up the better for us. Our authorities must be doing more than what they are doing now.

Source : Ghana Daily, Edited by Livingstone Pay Charlie