TEMA ROTARY CLUB DELIBERATE ON OIL FIND (PAGE 29, MARCH 4, 2010)

THE Rotary Club of Tema has organised a lecture for its members to update them on the oil find at Cape Three Points in the Western Region and its effects on the average Ghanaian.
The lecture, with the topic ‘Oil Find in Ghana: Avoiding the pitfalls of the Niger Delta at Cape Three Point’, was in recognition of the month of February, which was observed according to the tradition of Rotary International as a period set aside for World Peace and Understanding’. The celebration was linked with the oil find in Ghana.
The Head of Programmes at the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development, Mr E. Kojo Pumpuni Asante, noted that there was the need to manage the high expectations of the people to avoid any situation that would bring about devastating impact on development.
He explained that many Ghanaians had high hopes of ‘making it big’ because of the oil find but cautioned that it was dangerous and therefore advised that the expectation should be properly and expertly managed.
Mr Asante said there were lessons to be learnt from the experience of some oil-resourced African countries experiencing ‘curses’ instead of being blessed with the oil find.
He noted that oil was an exhaustible resource and should be treated as an asset and not an income, explaining that there was the need to use the resources generated wisely.
Mr Asante called for the need to maximise the funds that would accrue from oil to the State by providing sustainable infrastructure to be managed for the future.
He stated that there could be investment in critical sectors of the economy like health, agriculture, education and to provide sound base for key institutions like the police service, human resource, adequate technical capacity, fire service and the judiciary.
Mr Asante was of the opinion that the country could experience a reversal of fortune rather than an additional economic fortune if the focus was shifted to oil to the neglect of other important areas, including cocoa and agriculture in general.
He described as unfortunate the general perception that the oil find would transform the lives of the people overnight, explaining that the main drilling activity would be undertaken offshore at a distance that would be prohibited and out of bounds to those who would have nothing to do with the activity. Mr Asante said Ghana, like many other Africans countries, had not taken the best out of its extractive sector, made up of the forestry, mining and fishing, for the benefit of its people and cautioned that the oil find might not yield much if the attitude did not change.
He called for prudent measures to ensure adequate technical capacity to handle oil development and regulation to be able to deal with the oil resource.
Mr Asante said Ghana could avoid pitfalls in its energy policies, if revenue management policy and law and local content among other policies were put in place to eliminate misuse of the oil revenue.
He was not happy with the rush for land in the Cape Three Points area in the wake of the oil find.
Mr Asante expressed fear that with the activities of investors, the local people might, in the end, have no land left for their use.
This, according to him, could lead to a revolt and lawlessness among the local people. The President of the Rotary Club of Tema, Mr John Bisiw, who chaired the programme, called for transparency in the dissemination of information on the oil find and insisted that relevant information on the it should be made available to members and the public at large to create awareness that would prepare them adequately to understand any future occurrence in the oil industry in the country.