Over distribution of oil money

No lessons learnt from gold mess

Ghanaian youth have been challenged not to sit on the fence but to speak out on current resource governance in the country to prevent few people from taking bad decisions that might result in a resource curse.

The Executive Director of the Africa Center for Energy Policy, ACEP, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam, who gave the advice said the only way the youth can effectively do that is to equip themselves with adequate knowledge on the happenings within the extractive sector, especially Petroleum contracting and revenue utilization by government.

"Don't keep quiet. Speak out and get your voices heard by the controllers or managers of the State purse. Demand what is rightly yours in the distribution of gains from our oil wealth." he charged.

Dr. Adams was speaking at a student's forum at Takoradi Polytechnic organized by Youth for Action Ghana, a youth oriented NGO, in-conjunction with the Liberal Studies Department of the Polytechnic.

The forum, which brought together extractive sector transparency watchers including the ACEP and Wacam, was sponsored by OSIWA.

Speaking on the theme, "Extractive Sector Governance and Accountability, the role of the student", Dr. Adams took student participants through a detailed overview of the Petroleum sector, contracting and revenue utilization as well as its regional distribution since commercial production begun in 2010.

He said; "The1992 Constitution of Ghana has entrusted the mineral resources of the country in the President for the citizenry and the citizenry have every right to question on its management". Dr. Adams charged the youth to speak up, write articles and call into programmes for responsible management of Ghana's natural resources since failure to do so could result in resource curse.

The Associate Executive Director of WACAM, Hannah Owusu-Koranteng also enlightened participants on the regulations and numerous challenges arising from mining in surrounding communities. She said any serious comparison on the benefits and negatives of mining in Ghana would produce a clear result of negative impacts with insignificance benefits.

Madam Owusu-Koranteng however called on policy makers to quickly work to rectify mining regulations that only promote the interest of mining investors against mining communities who are suffering negative socio-environmental impact from mining activities such as lose of livelihood and pollution.

The Paramount Chief of Essikado Traditional Area, Nana Kobina Nketia who chaired the forum said, "mining and oil companies don't come to invest in the interest of Ghanaians or Africans but themselves. Nana Nketia added that today's society problems are due to community disempowerment, engineered by politicians who are usually paid by these companies, hence asked the youth to be critical thinkers in confronting the many societal problems.

James Kwabena Bomfeh, the Executive Director of the Youth for Action Ghana, explained that the youth forum was put together to nurture a new crop of youth who are conscious of how governance affects their future and therefore the need for them to be concerned and participate in governance.

He said the Youth for Action Ghana has reliable information from experts like the ACEP who have done a lot of study on Ghana's Petroleum industry. Mr. Bomfeh said, "the picture they paint to us is not a good one. We don't appear to be learning the examples of Nigeria, Guinea, Gabon and other nations who have suffered from their oil endowment".

"We haven't moved away from the path of having a Dutch disease, and so we are worried that the early signals we are picking from the oil sector indicate that we don't appear to have learnt any lesson from the mining of Gold and Diamond as well as other resources in the country", he explained.

The Youth for Action Ghana Executive Director went on to say that the path on which Ghana is treading with Petroleum management will lead the country to a resource curse and this require an immediate departure. "The Youth for Action Ghana is leading the crusade by empowering the youth to stand up to speak against the wrong since they are the future." Students of Takoradi Polytechnic who participated in the forum had the opportunity of asking questions bordering on extractive revenue management and its distribution.