National Oil Spill Contingency Plan Working Group Tasked

The 4 member working group for the National Oil Spill Contingency Plan has been sanctioned to effectively keep the country in a state of preparedness for any oil spill incident on our sea.

This working group includes the Operations Working Group, Environment Working Group, Chemical Working and the Waste Management Working Group with personnel drawn from identified institutions.

A statement read on behalf of the Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), Mahama Ayariga noted that the inauguration of the working group will also paved the way for the revised National Oil Spill Contingency Plan to be finalized and printed in first quarter of 2017.

The Sector Minister indicated that the key element in the restructuring process is the formation of technical working groups to serve as the technical arm of the National Oil Spill Steering Committee.

According to him, Ghana in 1986, through the assistance of International Maritime Organization (IMO), developed the National Oil Spill Contingency Plan (NOSCP) after an initial risk assessment.

At that time, he added that certain specific goals were set out so as to have a certain level of preparedness for management of oil spill.

Mahama Ayariya stated that some of these goals are development of an environmental sensitivity map of the entire coast of Ghana, development of policy on the use of dispersants in our marine environment, guidelines on the importation and use of dispersants, guidelines on management of oily waste generated as a result of an oil spill, continuous review of the NOSCP, training and conducting exercises.

He added that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through the collaborative effort of its stakeholders has been able to achieve all these goals set out in the NOSCP.

The sector Minister noted that the NOSCP has been reviewed severally with the last version in print in 2010.

Mahama Ayariga said a complete restructuring of the administrative structure and review of the NOSCP was initiated in 2011 due to the emerging upstream industry which called for common understanding of the role of each stakeholder identified in the NOSCP.

According to him, preceding the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between EPA and its partners in March 2016 was the formation of a National Oil Spill Steering Committee to assist the EPA in its preparedness process.

The Acting Executive Director of EPA, John A. Pwamang, said, in the event of a spill, to achieve the highest level of response effectiveness, all involved parties have to act cooperatively and with high degree of coordination.

He added that after many years of working together and learning from experience, it is prudent for us to now dedicated working groups for the various aspect of the NOSCP.

The Deputy Director, Oil and Gas, EPA, Kofi Agbenor-Efunam said when there is an oil spill from a tanker on the sea, affected communities or individuals can apply for the Oil Pollution Compensation Fund which is a global fund after submitting a claim.

“The fund company will come and set up in the country to verify the damage before releasing the compensation,” he stated.

Mr. Kofi Agbenor-Efunam added that the Operations Working Group will be in-charge of the contingency plan after every exercise for it to be reviewed, the Environment Working Group would also look at all the actions they will undertake to benefit the environment, the Chemicals Working Group that will be looking at the chemicals that will be used during the spill to disperse it and lastly the Waste Management Group that will be in-charge of avoiding the waste during the clean up.