Re-Energy Ministry Accused Of Mysteriously Contracting Foreign Companies

The Ghana Institute of Governance and Security (GIGS) commend and embrace the call by Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) asking government to cease the administrative procedure of awarding oil blocks and a call on government to lay the petroleum Exploration and production Bill before parliament for approval to make competitive bidding compulsory.

As much as we agree with them on this point, the current NDC government cannot be faulted for going through the wrong procedure for awarding the oil blocks they are complaining about.

All oil blocks awarded under the NPP administration went through the same procedure.

This colonial procedure was adopted by the previous NPP administration against the advice of international organizations but, they stood their grounds because of the likely benefits that would accrue to the political class and the elite technocrat in charge.

Section (2) two of petroleum Exploration and production PNDC law 84 categorically state applications of oil blocks must go through competitive bidding procedure but the NPP administration chose to adopt the bilateral or administrative procedure.

The current NDC administration is simply following the footsteps of NPP administration not to rock the boat because of the chop, chop.

This call is rather belated because both NPP and NDC have caused great collateral damages to the oil industry as a whole.

In our opinion, the whole oil industry from the upstream to downstream needs a quick overhauling by independent international oil experts.

On the call to lay the bill before parliament, we have realized this is the second time in this year they are making this call on government.

What is their motive and intentions? We at GIGS hold a different position on their call.

We strongly believe the bill should be withdrawn by government and subject it to national debate by bringing together all organisations and stakeholders to state their positions on the bill and sanctity of it being adopted to regulate our upstream petroleum industry.

By this method, a national consensus would have been built on these very important national issues

We must remember that what we are doing now would impact on the present generation and as well as the future generation to follow us.

So therefore, we must make sure the correct policies are adopted to enhance the maximum benefits from the oil and gas resources.

With our sincere thanks

David Agbee
Executive Director