Safeguarding Ghana's Petroleum revenues

NEWS COMMENTARY ON THE MANDATE AND WORK OF THE PUBLIC INTEREST AND ACCOUNTABILITY COMMITTEE BY DOMINIC HLORDZI, A JOURNALIST.
The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), is a statutory body established under section 51 of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act 2011 (Act 815) to provide an independent oversight of the collection, allocation and utilisation of the country’s petroleum revenues. It is mandated to monitor and evaluate compliance with the Act by government and key institutions charged with the responsibility to manage, use and invest petroleum revenues for the benefit of the citizenry. Since its establishment in 2011, PIAC has published seven annual and six semi-annual reports. It held public engagements in all regional capitals and about 100 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies. It also undertook project inspection tours across the country. The Committee made recommendations in its statutory reports which have guided both governmental and corporate policies in the Petroleum Sector. PIAC has discovered a number of anomalies in the management and utilisation of oil and gas revenues over the years. The Committee in its reports cited mismanagement, misapplication, misappropriation, fraud and lack of value for money in the utilisation of petroleum revenues appropriated through the national budget. The Committee also cited the spreading of oil and gas allocations thinly on several projects and advised government against it but the practice persists.
To address the situation, some stakeholders have suggested that petroleum revenues be used to finance legacy projects instead of the current practice where oil money is used as counterpart funding for several projects. Yes! We are aware part of the petroleum revenues is being used to finance the free Senior High School programme. However, it is important for government to consider the legacy projects suggestion to ensure that monumental facilities are constructed for ordinary Ghanaians to see the benefit of the oil find. Former President Kwame Nkrumah constructed legacy projects like the Akosombo Hydroelectric Dam, the Tema Habour and Motorway which have stood the test of time and generations continue to benefit from such projects. Similar projects should receive funding from our petroleum revenues instead of sprinkling the money on almost every project.
Ghana earned a little over four billion Dollars since it started producing oil and gas eight years ago. It is however difficult to point at a legacy project funded with petroleum revenue. It is critical for PIAC to do all it can to live up to expectation when it comes to ensuring accountability and transparency in the management of our petroleum resources. It is re-assuring that the Public Interest and Accountability Committee is in consultation with accountability institutions like the Economic and Organised Crime Unit (EOCO), the Auditor General’s Department, Bureau of National Investigations and the Special Prosecutor’s Office to have persons who mismanage, misapply, misappropriate or waste Petroleum revenues on ghost projects and projects that have been shoddily done prosecuted. This is a step in the right direction since the Committee is not clothed with prosecutorial powers to cause for the jailing of persons who fraudulently misapply petroleum revenues. We must encourage members of PIAC not to relent on this decision but go all out with their collaboration to ensure that government officials and contractors who apply petroleum revenues wrongly are punished to serve as deterrent to others.
To be successful, members of PIAC must avoid swimming in political waters and resist any political interference in the course of their work. It is equally important to remind members of PIAC who are representing the various organisations on the Committee to work in unity with the one cardinal objective of upholding the interest of the citizenry. Posterity will blame PIAC if it fails to live up to its mandate. Petroleum is a non-renewable natural resource. Ghana’s petroleum reserves reduce with every barrel extracted. To this end, there is the need to ensure sustainable management and efficient utilisation of the proceeds from Petroleum production for the benefit of both present and future generations.
Our oil find must not be a curse but a blessing.
By Dominic Hlordzi, a journalist.