Plans of the incoming government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to relocate the headquarters of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) from Tema to Takarodi in the Western Region is a bad idea, Strategic Thinkers Network (STRANEK), a think tank, has said.

Mr Akufo-Addo made a promise to relocate the GNPC head office during the heat of the campaign ahead of last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections.

During a visit to the Western regional House of Chiefs as part of his Thank You tour after winning the elections, he said: “The commitments that we have made are commitments that are going to be fulfilled. We are going to relocate the headquarters of GNPC to this region.”

But STRANEK, in a statement co-signed by Nii Tettey Tetteh and Charles Kwadade, both Executive Directors, said: “Relocation of GNPC [headquarters] will lead to wasteful expenditure where there will be huge cost incurred. Costs of relocation are undoubtedly higher and they can be higher than anticipated. At a juncture where there is likely to be oil found in other regions such as Volta Region, specifically the Keta basin, one can imagine the cost of relocation as and when oil is discovered in a region. It then makes relocation of GNPC a not well-thought through promise hence a promise in bad taste.”

“Furthermore, the disruption the relocation of GNPC is likely to cause is another factor which makes the promise seem to look like the NPP is going ahead of itself. What activities will be going on at GNPC at the time of the relocation vis-à-vis transition since oil is likely to be discovered in other regions such as Volta Region? It is [for] these and a litany of factors that we deem it fit to ask the NPP to hasten slowly with regards to the GNPC relocation promise.

The group rather suggested that there can be subsidiary offices at various regions where oil is discovered, which will report to the GNPC headquarters located in the Capital City of Ghana.