The Co-Chairman of the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI), Dr. Steve Manteaw, has expressed worry over Ghanaians not demanding accountability from the extractive sector of the economy, despite information made available to the public.
He also noted that the GHEITI hinged on two areas, namely transparency and accountability. According to him, EITI had been able to establish transparency at the sector, but, however, bemoaned that with the numerous information made available to Ghanaians about the extractive sector, they do not demand accountability.
Manteaw argues that, per the EITI framework, it was supposed to furnish Ghanaians with information which would enable the citizenry to use the information to demand accountability from the authorities, but this had not materialised.
He said: “We have not quite managed to achieve accountability.”
According to him, the EITI theory of change presupposes that when the citizens are armed with information, they would then use the information to demand accountability from duty bearers.
To the Co-Chairman of GHEITI, this meant that the theory of change that says that transparency would begat accountability needed to be re-examined.
Steve Manteaw made these assertions at a stakeholder dissemination workshop held by the Ghana EITI reports on mining and oil/gas in Kumasi recently, under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance (MoF), and the GHEITI, in collaboration with the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur International Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
The EITI is an initiative which involves the reconciliation of payments by the extractive industries, and receipts by the government with the ultimate aim of promoting transparency and accountability.
The event, which was attended by stakeholder in the extractive sector, sought to create the required public awareness, generate interest, and debate on the issues raised in the 2019 Report of the GHEITI. It also aimed at paving the way for stakeholder engagements on the EITI report, as requested by the EITI Standards.
According to the GHEITI 2019 Report, Ghana accrued a total of interest from her oil royalties in 2020 amounted to US$666.39, contributing to 7% of government domestic revenue for that year.
These royalties, it noted, were accrued from Carried and Participating Interest (CAPI), Corporate Income Taxes (CIT), and Surface Rentals, adding that a total of 3,711 employees were engaged in the upstream petroleum sector, out of which 500 were expatriates, with 3,211 being Ghanaians, curbing unemployment in Ghana.
In 2021, crude oil export receipts amounted to US$3.95 billion, compared to US$2.91 billion in 2020, due to higher prices, despite a decline in the volume exported.
Manteaw has, therefore, noted that there may be a need for other intervention actions to ensure that Ghana was able to render critical and very necessary transitions.
In an address which was delivered by Alhaji Bashiru Razak on behalf of the Chief Director and Chair of the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the contribution of the upstream oil and gas sector to energy generation in Ghana could not be overemphasised, adding that the gas produced was supplied for domestic power generation.
He said: “In 2020, a total of 88,515.58 million Standard Cubic Feet (MMscf) of Associated Gas and Non-Associated Gas produced from Jubilee, TEN and SGN fields were supplied to various thermal plants in Ghana for domestic power generation.
A total of 580,034.37 MMSCF has, so far, been produced from 2014 to 2020, most of which has been utilised for domestic power generation in Ghana, some flared, and others re-injected.”
On the mining sector, he disclosed that in 2020, the sector contributed approximately 41 percent of total exports earnings, with 14 percent of total tax revenues, and 5.5 percent of Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
He indicated that gold took a giant lead among the minerals which were exported from Ghana: “Gold contributes over 90% of Ghana’s total mineral exports and makes up 49% of the country’s total export value as at December 2020. Ghana, until recently, was the leading producer of gold in Africa.”
According to data from the Bank of Ghana, spot gold price averaged US$1,799.79 per fine ounce in 2021, a marginal increase of 1.6 per cent compared to US$1,770.77 per fine ounce recorded in 2021.
In a message read on behalf of the Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei-Mensah, he noted that the discovery of oil and gas in Ghana had called for the demand of better living and earning standards.
Osei-Mensah mentioned that it was, therefore, paramount that the government put in place measures to promote principles of accountability and transparency to avoid public distrust.
He indicated that EITI was primarily set to focus on revenue transparency, and has now expanded its scope to include beneficial ownership disclosure, commodity trading transparency, contract disclosure, and license allocation.
