The deputy Minority Leader, Hon. Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah has said that Ghana could have raked in more revenue to shore up what it is already making if the Akufo-Addo-led administration had devoted little attention to developing and consolidating the gains made in its upstream petroleum sub-sector.
He said the almost seven years of neglect as echoed by former President John Dramani Mahama means the West African nation has missed a lot of opportunities the upstream petroleum sub-sector has to offer, describing the performance of President Akufo-Addo in the sector as the worst he has ever witnessed.
According to Hon. Buah who was the Minister of Energy in Mr. Mahama’s government, greed, political interference, and underhand dealings by the government has led the petroleum sub-sector in a very frail state since a lot of investors that hitherto had invested heavily in the sub-sector, have withdrawn their investment and relocated to another country.
“The NDC left power with three active producing fields in 2017. Not one has been added to it. The NDC left power with 12 petroleum agreements. Some of them have led to new discoveries. One has to do with ENI’s discovery and the other has to do with Springfield’s discovery. The NDC left power having brought Ghana into a gas era and you will recall the game-changing project – the ENI Offshore Cape Three Points processing plant that basically has addressed the issue of cheaper fuel. All the queues for LPG are no more because we now have enough LPG for our local market”, he noted.
He added “Unfortunately for us, we are in the seventh year and the Nana Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government cannot point to one additional oil-producing field not even with the new discoveries. As we speak, there is a dispute between some of the parties. Springfield has discovered oil and ENI has also discovered oil. Springfield says its discovery straddles ENI. This calls for leadership to solve it.
Unfortunately, this had dragged for over two years. Even with the new discoveries, the NPP-led government doesn’t have the leadership skills to shepherd that into production. So, former President Mahama was right to say that the seven years in power of this Akufo-Addo administration have been wasted years in the upstream petroleum sub-sector. What is worse is that almost any serious investor in the upstream sector has left Ghana. ExxonMobil is one example. We can also talk about Aker that got the Akufo-Addo-led government to amend our laws to the disadvantage of the people of Ghana”.
