[ 2012-05-17 ]

Ghana's oil revenue goes public today
Government’s management of revenue generated from
the country’s oil and gas resources will today
come under intense scrutiny when the Public
Interest and Accountability Committee makes public
its first detailed report.

The 13 member statutory committee was inaugurated
last year following the passage of the Petroleum
Revenue Management Act to monitor and evaluate how
the government manages and uses petroleum
revenues.

Chairman of the communications sub-committee, Yaw
Owusu Addo told Joy News today’s report will
comprehensively highlight government’s failures
and successes in the management of oil and gas
revenue.

“The laws just want to avoid situation that we
have had in other countries where oil has been
found and in our case we just want to be sure that
we dispel all notions of stealing or whatever. We
want to be transparent.

“So it is opened, everything about is there where
we got it wrong, where we got it right is all
there, and all the advice.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance has endorsed a
report released Wednesday by the Institute of
Economic Affairs that gives a perfect score of a
hundred percent for the transparent way the sector
minister has handled oil and gas revenue.

Deputy Finance Minister, Seth Tekper told Joy News
the sector Minister has done enough to deserve the
perfect score.

“We did our best to meet the stringent requirement
of the Petroleum Management Act, and yes we are
glad the report is positive on our performance in
the initial year of accounting for the oil
revenue. We will be improving as far as the
Ministry of Finance is concerned, but part of the
improvement will also come when other agencies
begin to do their work.”

Meanwhile, the Extractive Industry Transparency
Initiative has supported the finance ministry’s
commitment to further improve its transparency in
dealing with oil and gas revenues despite the
perfect score awarded the finance minister.

Source - MyjoyOnline

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