LANets trained to monitor projects funded through oil revenues

Members of Local Accountability Networks (LANets) in Tamale have undergone training to build their capacity to enable them to monitor projects being implemented using the country’s oil revenues.

As part of the day’s training held in Tamale, participants were taken through the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA) and the issues they should look out for when it was time for monitoring the projects such as missing projects, touch and go where projects were not completed, to ups, and situations where the money was not even found at all.

This was in line with the “From Disclosure to Impact – Mobilising Local Civil Society to verify Published Extractives Data and Advocate for Equitable, Accountable Spend of Funds” project being implemented by the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC).

The year-long project, which began in June, 2022 and would end in May, 2023, is being implemented in five Assemblies across the country including Tamale Metropolis, Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis, Nzema East, and Ho Municipalities, and Asante Akim Central District.

Mr Samuel Harrison-Cudjoe, Research and Policy Officer, GACC, who gave details of the project during the training, said as part of the project “GACC is mobilising local CSOs to verify published extractives data. It is supposed to help us in our advocacy and accountability drive.”

He said the project was also to ensure that “We get the tangible benefits of our oil revenue. Now, by the PRMA, we are supposed to spend 70 per cent of the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) on capital expenditure. So now, we want to monitor that. What are we spending on in terms of infrastructure? Where is it located? We will go and verify to see that the projects are actually there.”

He said this was to ensure that the impact of the country’s oil money would be really felt.

He urged participants to be brave, and keep up the good work because “This is a lot of voluntary work that you are doing. As you go through this, remember that we are not doing this for ourselves but for our children and our children’s children, and to ensure a better Ghana.”

Mr Masud Aziz Rauf, Executive Director of RUWA Ghana, and LANet Focal Person in Tamale urged participants to be meticulous in discharging their roles to verify the projects being funded through the ABFA.