Government Asked To Invest Oil Money In Other Sectors

The government of Ghana has been urged to re-invest proceeds from the oil and gas industry in other sectors of the economy. Mr. Nuertey Adzeman, Executive Director of the Ghana Oil and Gas Service Providers Association (GOGSPA), told Spyghana in an interview here Thursday the economy of the West African country could not be run on oil and gas alone as this resource would not be available after some time. �Oil and gas is just a catalyst. It�s a closed industry which is specialized but rather trickles down to other sectors of the economy so you need to take from oil and gas and put into other sectors of the economy. �Oil and gas money cannot continue to run your economy the way you like. What comes should be directed to agriculture, infrastructure, and tourism, among others, so that when it is not there, you can still go on to run your economy as a country,� Mr. Nuertey Adzeman said. Ghana discovered oil in commercial quantities in July 2010 but actual production commenced in November 2011. The expectation of many Ghanaians was that having become an oil and gas producing economy, they were going to derive so much from the resource. Mr. Nuertey Adzeman said the only way Ghanaians would feel any positive impact of the oil find was to undertake projects that future generations would come and see. �Government should make sure that we make most out of the oil and gas by reinvesting the money into massive infrastructure such as roads, hospitals, and in education, among others. �But if you are keeping everything in one kitty and at the end of the day it is the same old story, after 50 years we would have nothing to show for it.� He said Ghana had no excuse of failing in the management of its oil since it could draw lessons from what had happened in other producing countries in the world. Experts in the oil industry have predicted that Ghana�s oil will diminish after 50 years of mining. GOGSPA says it is re-positioning itself to participate in other countries that would commence exploration and production of the mineral. �There�s been oil find in Liberia, Sierra Leone, all the way to Mauritania, so, as we speak, there are Ghanaian companies doing pretty well there and we are building our capacities here and, within the shortest possible time, we are going to be the new champions in those jurisdictions as well. It�s all about capacity building,� Mr. Nuertey Adzeman said. He commended the Ghana government for undertaking the 850 million dollars Atuabo Processing Plant located in the Ellembele District in the Western Region (Province), located some 218 km west of Accra, the national capital. The gas processing plant which is being constructed by Sinopec, a Chinese company, is expected to boost the country�s power generation capacity. Mr. Nuertey Adzeman said the oil and gas industry was an international one which operated by certain standards, and asked Ghanaians to prepare themselves to acquire the standard certification to be able to play fairly in the industry. GOGSPA is an association of indigenous Ghanaian companies providing services in the oil and gas industry, and also serves as an interface between the country�s Petroleum Commission, which is the regulator, and foreign service companies.