IEA commends Minister of Finance and Economic Planning

Accra, May 16, GNA – The Petroleum Transparency and Accountability (P-TRAC) Index score for 2011 gave, Dr Kwabena Duffuor, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning 100 per cent score for publication of petroleum receipts.

The P-TRAC Index published by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and made available to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Wednesday said Dr Duffuor provided good level of information on oil and gas reserves.

It said the Ministry provided information on prices and production values through various agencies including Bank of Ghana (BoG), Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MoFEP).

The GNPC and MoFEP provided adequate information on government's share of oil revenues, but BoG received zero per cent for this component.

The report revealed that information in relation to production costs associated with oil and gas exploration and production was available; however, the frequency of reports on expenditure by the MoEFP was judged not to meet best practice standards and received a score of only 33 per cent.

The P-TRAC Index is a project undertaken by IEA to promote transparency and accountability in the management of Ghana's precious oil and gas resources.

The 2011 P-TRAC Index measures transparency based on the provision of publicly available information in four key areas - Contract Transparency, Revenue Transparency, Expenditure Transparency and the management of the Heritage and Stabilisation Funds - for 2011.

A score is awarded based on the fulfillment of specified criteria for each component, which is then averaged to give an overall result.

GNA