By Emmanuel Mensah-Abludo
The Upper West Regional Coordinating Director, Peter Maala says the hard work of Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) will be meaningless and waste of national resources if citizens do not take interest in the reports the Committee produces.
He has therefore challenged citizens to endeavour to know the contents of PIAC’s reports to be empowered to speak from an informed position when the need arises. Mr. Maala threw the challenge when he stood in for the Upper West Regional Minister Dr. Hafiz Bin Salih at PIAC’s Public Forum on the management of Ghana’s Petroleum Revenue in Wa.
Mr. Maala indicated that the petroleum industry in Ghana is relatively new and it is therefore very important that the citizenry show interest in order to understand its ramifications and touched on citizen’s participation : “As you know, the 21st century is an area that recognises citizens participation in governance and promoting citizen’s empowerment.
To achieve this, however, information disclosure will have to be taken seriously by our institutions. For me, it is to instill these attributes into our public institutions that committees like PIAC are beginning to show up in our laws.” Mr. Maala was excited that Upper West is playing host to projects being funded from the petroleum revenue.
He stated: “The Upper West Region has been a beneficiary of a number of projects funded from petroleum revenue. These include the rehabilitation of an irrigation Dam at Guo in the Nandom District, construction of two dugouts at Yebile and Kadowli in the Wa Municipality, upgrading of Wa-Bulenga-Yaala Road, construction of a health center at Eggu in the Wa West District and construction of a warehouse at Bulenga, to mention but a few.”
Mr. Maala was very thankful to government for the projects and appealed for allocation of additional resources, especially, to the agricultural sector which is a major economic activity of the people of Upper West for the development of the Region.
The Vice Chairman of PIAC, Nasir Alfa Mohammed in a presentation observed that “For consecutive years(2021 – 1.74 & 2022 – 2.39%), the ministry of finance has not been able to meet the requirement to transfer five per cent (5%) of tha Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) to the District Assemblies Common Fund, contrary to the decision of the Supreme Court of Ghana in the case of Kpodo and Another vrs Attorney-General in 2019”.
He also stressed the need for the citizenry to stand up against the dissipation of petroleum resources. Mr. Mohammed said, “As a nation, we will not allow our leaders to dissipate the petroleum resources of this country on themselves and allow us to wallow in poverty. That is the reason we have to stand up. It matters not which political party one person belongs to if you take a leader who comes from your political party and s/he is spending your petroleum money to the disadvantage of your grandmother and mother at Eggu who cannot access healthcare because we have a dilapidated healthcare facility at Eggu which serves over 24 communities, then there is a problem.”
The Vice Chairman of PIAC noted that the Minister of Finance should comply with the relevant provisions of legislative instruments (L.I) 2381 in determining the cap of Ghana Stabilisation Fund (GSF), in order that the Fund would be able to cushion the economy in times of unanticipated petroleum revenue shortfalls.
The Pro Vice-Chancellor of Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS), Prof. Emmanuel K. Derbile who presided at the forum, called for capital transformation of strategic resources as an antidote to the “resource curse question”.
