Government urged to plan a formula for utilization of oil revenue

Koforidua, June 29, GNA - Dr Samuel Donkor, President of All Nations University College (ANU) in Koforidua, has suggested to the government to plan a formula backed by an instrument of Parliament for the utilization of oil revenue.

This, he said, should be preceded by the setting up of a non-partisan committee made up of people with diverse background but high qualifications to draw up a 50-year plan for the formula. "By so doing, we will have a clear plan to guide the nation in the utilization of the oil revenues for decades thus avoiding the pitfalls of many African nations where greed, corruption, avarice and unbridled spending leave the masses with nothing," he said. Dr Donkor said this at a luncheon for eight faculty members who returned from India.

He proposed the formula for the distribution of the revenue as follows 10 percent each for infrastructure, education, job creation, youth and sports, debt repayment, research and development, re-investment in the energy sector and 20 percent for savings. He said the formula would make the oil a blessing and help to utilize the revenue in an equitable manner to ensure that greed and corruption would not have an upper hand.

He said one of the major challenges of private institutions was the ability to recruit qualified faculty members and to meet that challenge the ANU had resorted to training its own alumni as faculty members for the university. Dr Donkor commended the retuning faculty members for being selfless and living up to their commitment. Mrs Vera Aboagye, Registrar of the university, said the eight were selected according to their excellent academic performance and sponsored entirely to an Indian university for masters' degree programmes. She said by the agreement of the sponsorship they are to serve the university for at least five years and expresses the hope that they would make a difference to encourage others to utilize such opportunity. Mr Daniel Danso Essel, one of them, said they hoped to impart the knowledge and skills to others.