Petrocom To Punish Oil Companies For Breach Of Local Content

The Petroleum Commission (PC) of Ghana has served notice to deal ruthlessly with oil companies that try to flout the Local Content law of the country’s upstream petroleum sector.

The country’s Local Content Policy compels oil companies to source for other essential services to companies listed in the Petroleum Register of the Commission. However, some companies have been side-stepping the process and rather seek to award contracts to those outside the register.

The Manager of the Legal Department of the Ghana Petroleum Commission, Nana Akua Adjei says the Commission will sanction companies that failed to comply with the policy.

Speaking to Citi Business News in an interview monitored by ModernGhana, Nana Akua Adjei indicated that the culprits risk being fined to the tune of 3million Cedis.

“We will sanction them. All these are part of the local content regulations that have sanctions. I think it is a minimum of 100,000 to 200,000 penalty units. And 1 penalty unit is about 12 Ghana Cedis. So look at the highest end which is about 250,000 penalty units which gives you about 3 million Ghana Cedis,” she cautioned.

She emphasized that the oil companies were by the law supposed to out-source their contracts to companies on the Commissions' register and therefore should always confer with the Commission In order to avoid being sanctioned.

“Once they are going to put out a tender, or once there is a project that they now have to go out and find contractors, they are obliged to come for that petroleum register and look through that petroleum register and actually let the companies which have registered be aware that these projects are coming up. Otherwise you are sidelining or disadvantaging these companies," she intimated.