A policy analyst with the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), Dr Steve Manteaw has noted that it is time the nation used its oil money for projects that will benefit both current and future generations.
“We have to learn a lesson from the exploration of mineral resources which rather had a negative impact on the society and use our oil money for legacy projects that will benefit future generations,” he indicated
Dr Manteaw was speaking at the Speaker’s Breakfast Forum in parliament yesterday which was on the topic ‘Challenges in the Gold Mining Sector and Lessons For the Oil and Gas Sector: Implications For Policy in Ghana.’
He faulted politicians for not strictly applying the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA) which has been passed by parliament to guide the application of Ghana’s oil money.
He said for instance that a provision in the PRMA requires the Finance Minister to outline all projects being undertaken with oil money when presenting annual budget statements in parliament but all the Finance Ministers who have come after the passage of the law have failed to do that.
He indicated that irony of the situation is that oil monies that are allocated for specific projects are not used for that purpose adding that investigations by the Public Interest Accountability Committee (PIAC) monitoring oil money have established that most of the projects that are said to have been executed with oil money are non-existent.
He said those oil-funded projects which were luckily located were poorly executed.
He has therefore called on parliament to be up and doing and ensure that the laws that were passed by the House are fully complied with.
The Technical Adiviser at the Ministry of Planning, Dr Ishmael Ackah who also spoke at the forum called for the amendment of the PRMA so that oil revenue would be invested in areas that will help create jobs for Ghanaians.
He said the current PRMA as it stands, places more emphasis on transparency and not accountability and so an amendment could be made to ensure that there is more accountability by people entrusted with the use of the nation’s oil money.
He said another alternative is for government to focus more attention on the growth of agriculture since agriculture has the potential to bring the needed development to the country.
The Speaker of Parliament, Prof Aaron Michael Oquaye for his part noted that Ghana’s oil must not be a curse to the nation as mining has done therefore lessons learnt from decades of gold exploitation must serve as a lesson to guide the future as Ghana exploits Oil and Gas for the sake of posterity.
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