[ 2014-09-20 ]

Local content in oil sector to be implemented
Takoradi, Sept. 19, GNA – Mr. Emmanuel
Armah-Kofi Buah, the Minister of Energy and
Petroleum, says the development of local content
was key in ensuring that Ghana’s oil becomes the
bedrock of sustainable economic development.
He has therefore tasked the Petroleum Commission
to strategize in optimizing the benefits of the
petroleum resources among Ghanaians.

The Energy Minister was speaking at the third
Local Content Workshop for SMEs on the topic
“Creating Opportunities for Local Content and
Participation in the Upstream Petroleum
Industry” at Takoradi.

He said Ghana had a huge potential to grow and
transform its economy through industrialization,
job creation and equitable distribution of wealth
and the passage of the Local Content Bill sought
to increase utilization of local expertise, goods
and services and businesses along the petroleum
value chain.

The Energy Minister said: “in order to
operationalize this, the Commission has developed
medium term strategies to ensure the smooth
implementation of the law. This includes the
development of guidelines, templates and
monitoring and evaluation systems.”

Currently, there are about 152 Ghanaian companies
out of the 232 registered with the Commission and
between 2008 and last quarter of 2014,
approximately 584million dollars has been awarded
in terms of contract to Ghanaian companies with
218 million dollars being oil related.

Mr. Theophilus Ahwireng, Acting Chief Executive of
the Commission, said the Commission had developed
National Internship Programme to provide graduates
and technicians with the requisite skills and
experience to address unemployment as well as
bridge the skills gap in the oil sector.

He said he was not happy with the recent
demonstrations in the sector and called on unions
and companies to adopt appropriate conflict
resolution strategies to avert the recurrence of
the situation.

Mr. Ahwireng urged contractors to use the local
content to grow indigenes business and SMEs in
order to fully indigenize the sector.

Dr. Kwabena Donkor, Chairman of the Mines and
Energy Committee in Parliament, said Ghana had
been offered a new opportunity in terms of the oil
resource to develop in a more sustainable manner
for the benefit of posterity.

“All over the world, countries have used one
means or the other to develop. It could be
military rule, democracy or natural resources and
Ghana has this last opportunity to make good use
of the oil resource to advance in all angles”,
he added.

Dr. Julliette Twumasi-Anokye, a Local Content
Consultant with the Petroleum Commission, appealed
to Ghanaian companies to work hard in making the
Local Content policy a realistic one.

Source - GNA

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