The Government received a total of 396.17 million dollars as petroleum revenue for the year 2015, and exported crude oil that contributed to 18.7 per cent of the total merchandise export.

The petroleum sector also contributed 4.1 per cent to Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2015, which is a significant achievement, the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) Report on the Oil and Gas Sector 2015, has revealed.

The revenues were generated from the Corporate Income Tax of 20.41 million dollars, 465,920 dollars in Surface Rentals, 553,815.32 dollars from Gas sales, 419,387 dollars as price differential from 2014 and 30, 468 dollars as returns on investment.

The 2015 GHEITI Report, lunched together with that of the 2015 Mining Sector Report in Accra on Wednesday, has, however, revealed that a net negative discrepancy of 289,381 dollars was obtained between company payments and government receipts.

The Report said some of the participatory companies, particularly Hess Ghana Exploration Limited, did not report any amount as training and technology fees whereas, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) reported 300,000 dollars as training and technology fee received from Hess Exploration.

Kosmos Energy HC also reported an amount of 10,589 dollars higher than that reported as corporate tax receipt by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).

Messrs Boas & Associates were engaged to produce the GHEITI Report on Oil and Gas payments covering January to December 2015, on behalf of the Ministry of Finance.

Participatory companies involved in the study were Tullow Ghana Limited, Kosmos Energy Ghana HC, Anadarko WCTP Limited, the GNPC, Petro SA, Ghana Gas Limited and Hess Ghana Exploration Limited.

The Report indicated that during the 2015 review year, 41.88 million dollars, representing approximately 16 per cent of 2015 Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) allocation was lodged into the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF).

It said 53.69 million dollars was withdrawn from the Ghana Stabilisation Fund and deposited in the ABFA Account to compensate for the shortfall in the projected quarterly in the amount for the first quarter of 2015, bringing total allocation to 292.98 million dollars.

According to the report, the GNPC received 126.86 million dollars in 2015 as equity financing costs and its share of net proceeds compared to 180.71 million dollars in 2014.

An amount of 93.84 million dollars, representing 73.7 per cent of the 2015 allocation to GNPC, was used to fund the Jubilee Equity Financing Cost while 17.32 million dollars, representing 13.7 per cent, was spent on other exploration and field development projects.

The Ghana Stabilisation Fund and the Ghana Heritage Fund received 15,171,062 dollars and 6,501,884 dollars respectively.

An amount of 387,219,927 dollars was obtained as total government receipt as reconciliation while a total receipt into Petroleum Holding Fund as declared by the GRA, amounted to 396, 142,411 dollars.

Analysis of the Report showed significant achievement in the area of transparency level of the extractive sector, experts have opined.

However, Dr Steve Manteaw, the Co-Chair of GHEITI, noted that what was left was the need to push for accountability in the sector.

He said all stakeholders, together with the civil society organisation and the media, needed to intensify their watchdog role to ensure that there was accountability in how revenues were spent at the various levels in the country.

Speaking to the media on the side-lines of the Report launch, Dr Manteaw said the media needed to interrogate the issues for those put in charge of spending oil revenue on behalf of the citizens to do the right thing and account accurately to them.

Mr Kwaku Kwarteng, the Deputy Minister of Finance, Dr Amin Adam, Deputy Minister of Energy, and a representative of the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, as well as civil society activists, Members of Parliament and personnel from the district assemblies and stool lands attended the programme.