Obrempong’s Oil Diary: Open letter to PIAC [Article]

Dear PIAC,
I very much appreciate the critical role you have, and continue to play in informing the public on how, where and when the oil [or our oil] revenues are used since they started coming into state's coffers back in the last quarter of 2010.

I am also aware of the challenges you went [or are] going through in meeting your mandate as enshrined in the Petroleum Revenue Management Act PRMA 893, [then 815]. The challenge of office space to operate from, the starvation of funds for your work and your struggle to dig deep to retrieve the truth behind information provided you by reporting state agencies. I am very much aware. Well done PIAC.

I must also acknowledge the coming on board of Dr. Emmanuel Steve Asare Manteaw of ISODEC who is also the co-chair of the Ghana Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative GHEITI whose understanding of the oil sector is enormous. I believe he will add to the pool of knowledge you have in there.

But PIAC, I have gone through the list of reports you have published on the use of the oil revenues as demanded by the PRMA since 2011.

I am not that enthused about the quality of information you put out there for us. Of course, you give us what the Finance Ministry has provided you. I want to believe that you publish your reports such that citizens can use effectively to advance the course for accountability and not just transparency.

Let me put on record that I do not, and does not have any issue(s) with the committee. I am just sharing for a better quality report which citizens can use in supporting you 'fight' for the rightful use of the oil revenues. Besides, I'm a journalist whose role is to help committees like yours police people in our oil and gas space. For now, my problems with your reports are put into three.

They are:
Insufficient information on projects incapacitating us to demand accountability

The Finance Ministry shamefully submits scanty information on how it is spending the oil revenues on projects, and then parliament also debates it or approves its content. I am yet to know whether parliament does further due diligence on the report specifically on where [projects] the Finance Minister says it is spending the oil revenues are located.

So PIAC, apart from your balance sheet on crude lifting and monies realized in your reports, the part I like is the segment where you show us a list of projects receiving funding from the Annual Budget Funding Amount [ABFA]. Currently, your reports show readers the project, the region in which the project is found and how much oil revenue is spent on it. Fantastic! But this is where I have my disappointments.

You know it is the identification of these projects by citizens that help us police those projects and to appreciate the contribution of the oil revenues coming to the state. So I thought you could have gone beyond telling us the region in which the projects are to the districts, the contractor working on those projects, indicate whether there are other counterpart funding to the project, [and if there is, what is the percentage of oil revenues to the project], and the duration the project is supposed to be completed. But what do I see?

In all your reports, none has these details. What is even much disappointing is found at page 25 of the 2014 Reconciliation Report on the Petroleum Holding Fund submitted to parliament by Finance Minister Seth Tekper in March 2015 which you also have in your reports.

People, the Finance Ministry and PIAC failed to show us in which region over one hundred and twenty different projects are found, let alone add those other suggestions up there.

Adding to the disappointment, the Semi-Annual Report on the management of Petroleum Revenues for the period January to June 2015 excluded even the region in which these projects are found.

I am wondering if they felt we know their locations already or we don't need them. The irony is that for some projects they provided the regions, whilst others are completely omitted. The same is the situation in previous reports.

Please PIAC, insist that the Finance Ministry provides all other relevant information on every single project it says it is using oil revenues for. As you are doing, insist that they show us the project, the region in which it is found, the district, the project cost, the contractor, if there is/are counterpart funding let us know which percentage of oil revenues are there and the duration with which the project is to be completed.

Again, insist that the Finance Ministry stops the use of town names such as Mangoase, Besease junction, Ehiamankyene, Akpeteshie Nkwanta without providing additional information on these communities. At some points, you were doing it in your reports, but in that same report, you omitted these details for many projects.

Misallocation of Oil Funded Projects among the regions

Another issue of greater concern is when PIAC says a project is in the Western region, when in fact, it is in the Ashanti Region or the Eastern Region or other region. At page 19 of the 2014 Reconciliation Report on the Petroleum Holding Fund submitted to parliament by Finance Minister Seth Tekper in March 2015 which PIAC also have in its reports, PIAC says a total of some GH 3,108,908.22 was used to rehabilitate Bekwai (Amoaful) Ampoha-Asiwa road [in the western region]. For the record, Bekwai Amoaful is not in the western region, but in the Ashanti Region.

Similarly, at Page 75 of PIAC's own 2013 Annual Report, PIAC stated that a sum of GH 1,141,954.47 was spent on the construction of Twifo Praso [Offin] Dunkwa Road [in the western region] when in fact; both Twifo Praso and Offin Dunkwa are all in the Central Region.

At page 22 of the 2014 Reconciliation Report on the Petroleum Holding Fund submitted to parliament by Finance Minister Seth Tekper in March 2015 which PIAC also have in its reports, PIAC says “Construction of steel bridge No. ER/S/05 across River Asukese on Anyinase Junction Etwereso Feeder Road” is located [in the western region] when in fact, the towns mentioned is/are in the Eastern Region.

The reason this is serious is that, PIAC uses the number of project and amount spent on them to tell how much each region is getting from the oil revenues.

Incomplete information and missing attachment

Another incomplete story is told at page 42 of the 2014 Reconciliation Report on the Petroleum Holding Fund submitted to parliament by Finance Minister Seth Tekper in March 2015 which PIAC also have in its reports. At the said page, a sum of GH 3,600,000 counterpart funding is said to have been used for the construction of Faculty of Basic and Biomedical Sciences Building, student's Hostel and Staff Accommodation for [the] university. Again, which university is this report referring to as no mention is given anywhere again in the report? Besides, in which region is this university?

At page 33 and 34 of the 2014 Reconciliation Report on the Petroleum Holding Fund submitted to parliament by Finance Minister Seth Tekper in March 2015 which PIAC also have in its reports, several millions of Ghana cedis is said to have been used for the payment of the 2013 fertilizer subsidy program [as per attached document] and some other projects which is also said to have some attachment. The attached document too was never published in the report under review.

The above observations in PIAC's report reveal another disheartening situation in the quality of reports published. Read that in the next episode of Obrempong's Oil Dairy.

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By: Samuel Acquah Swanzy[Obrempong Yaw Ampofo]