The Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas in Ghana (CSPOG) has said the Heritage Fund can certainly not be Ghana’s first line of defence in an emergency.

It is, therefore, advising the government to consider other measures, such as further expenditure cuts in addition to the other prudent measures announced by the Finance Minister on Monday, to fight the COVID-19 pandemic instead of resorting to the Heritage Fund.

“We also welcome the pledge by the executive (Ministers, Deputies, and other political appointees) to contribute their three months’ salary to the fight against the epidemic. The Heritage Fund can certainly not be our first line of defence in an emergency. It must be for good reasons that the Constitution established a Contingency Fund, it’s time to take it seriously”, the Platform said in a statement.

The statement was co-signed by Dr Steve Manteaw, Mr Kwame Jantuah, Mr Samuel Bekoe and Mr Emmanuel Kuyole.

It explained: “We are of the conviction that though COVID-19 constitutes a clear and imminent threat to our existence, it is likely to serve as yet another opportunity to abuse the only evidence we have to show that this country has ever produced oil, given the wastefulness we have witnessed in the use of petroleum revenues.”

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta on Monday, 30 March 2020, requested that Parliament amend the Petroleum Revenue Management Act to allow a withdrawal from the Ghana Heritage Fund to undertake emergency expenditures in periods of national emergencies.

But CSPOG said while it “generally supports most of the Minister’s proposals, especially those relating to cost-cutting measures and expenditure realignment, including reduction in GNPC’s share of revenues, the group is convinced that the difficulty in which we find ourselves today wouldn’t shave been this dire if the government had kept religiously to the spirit and letter of the rules governing the petroleum revenue allocations.

“Indeed, we recognise that we are not in normal times but it is also important that current and future governments learn from some of the grievous mistakes we’ve made in order to avoid a repetition in future. ‘An unexamined life’, it is often said, ‘is not worth living’.”

Observations and Concerns With regard to the Heritage Fund

CSPOG said: “The Heritage Fund was established in recognition of the intergenerational interest in the hydrocarbon resource; hence it serves as a store of wealth for future generations.

“The Fund receives only 9 per cent of petroleum revenues.

“In 10 years, this has given us US$591.1 million.

“International best practices treat intergenerational funds as funds meant for the generation after petroleum reserves are completely depleted.

“Section 10 of Act 815 provides that we can go into the Fund after 15 years following its establishment, and even in that circumstance, Parliament will require a two-thirds majority, to access only the accrued interest and not the main transfers into the Fund”.