Reaction to President Mahama's Policy Statement 1:

We can understand the President's frustration about the slow pace in realising the benefits of the Local Content law, which requires Oil companies to draw extensively from a certain skill pool in Ghana. He must be informed that given the fact that oil is a finite resource, and typically the west African region has a 20-25 year oil life span, what other African countries DO is to focus on taxing the resource well, so proceeds would be used to reduce the infrastructure deficits he talked about yesterday. He must also be aware by now that the people preventing the realisation of aspects the local content law are Ghanaians; for instance the Petroleum Commission which has been demanding atrocious fees, in some instances $30,000 from locals before issuing licenses.