ACEP Wants Oil Money to Be Spent on Few Sustainable Projects

Senior Programmes Manager at the African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Munira Abubakari, says in order to ensure efficiency, Ghana’s oil money should be spent on a few sustainable projects.

According to her, even though government has tried as much as possible to follow the dictates of the petroleum revenue law, revenue generated from the sale of oil currently is “spread too thinly over so many projects” which do not ensure value for money.

“We as a policy think-thank we don’t think that it is good to spread money in that manner because it’s difficult tracking where the money goes to. 

“Besides, it also creates another problem where if you allocate money to a project and there are other funding sources coming to fund the same project, which is counterpart funding, it’s really not easy tracking the money and speaking to the right authorities, and getting information on such projects becomes difficult because there are so many funding sources. 

Speaking to Citi News in an interview on the sidelines of a day’s sensitization programme organized by ACEP at the Tamale Technical University, Ms. Abubakari revealed that she and her team have also visited some communities where there are supposed to be oil funded projects but unfortunately, those projects were nowhere to be found.

She indicated that, no significant impact has been made so far in the agric sector where oil money has been spent on capital projects, adding that, delay in the execution of projects also sometimes lead to cost overrun.

With funding support from OXFAM, the tracking of the oil money project by ACEP is focusing on projects executed with oil money in the agric sector. The team from ACEP has visited and interacted with officials of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Irrigation Development Authority at the regional level.

The Senior Programmes Manager of ACEP cited the unwillingness of some officials of certain departments to cooperate with her team when information is requested as one of the biggest challenges they are facing in tracking the oil money.

The sensitation programme sought to do a value for money analyses on oil funded projects in the agric sector specifically the Zakpalsi irrigation project in the Northern Region and the Tankasi and Zuiding irrigation projects in the Upper East Region.

It also sought to sensitise students of the Tamale Technical University about the existence of Ghana’s found iron ore at Sheini in the Tatale District and elicit views on how as a country, the minerals deposit could be managed or utilized in a sustainable manner.

The programme was also intended to sensitise the students on Ghana’s oil revenue utilization so far since the discovery oil in 2007 and the thematic areas within which the revenue has been used, how it was used and going forward, how well it could be used.