PEF HOLDS SEMINAR ON OIL FOR MEDIA PRACTITIONERS (PAGE 35, NOV 3, 2010)

THE Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF) in partnership with the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has organised a day’s seminar for over 20 media practitioners in the Western Region on the opportunities in the country’s emerging oil and gas industry for local participation.
The aim of the dialogue was to ensure that the media, a key partner in promoting local content and participation, fully understands the issues in the emerging oil and gas industry.
This is in recognition that a knowledgeable and active media is critical to having an informed and engaged public and business community so that appropriate policies will be put in place by the government for the benefit of the people.
In an address read on behalf of the Director General of the Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF), Dr Osei Boeh-Ocansey, he observed that simply developing local content policies following existing international best practice would not help in increasing local content and high participation in the oil industry.
He said it was easy for the multi-national oil companies to circumvent the local contents provisions by claiming that local companies did not meet the requirements to do business with them.
Dr Boeh-Ocansey , therefore, said the foundation would like to call on the government to support the private sector in terms of training in the areas of standards and skills development, and other aspects of business development.
“For us at PEF, as a country, we should clearly define standards appropriate for Ghana, clearly communicate these to the local companies, what assistance can be provided in helping local companies meet these standards and how to monitor compliance of utilisation of local content in the oil and gas industry,” he emphasised.
Dr Boeh-Ocansey added that the foundation recommended that the country should focus on standards and skills development for operators of local enterprises because that was crucial to achieving the 90 per cent local content target by the government by 2020.
He stated that the oil and gas discovery in the country had raised the hopes of the government and the general public and as such, there were high expectations from the people of Ghana about the future of the economy and the impact of the discovery on their economic livelihoods.
He said in other African countries that discovered oil ahead of Ghana, it was said that in most cases, oil discovery was a “curse rather than a blessing,” adding “This may be because the people in particular and the economy as a whole did not derive the maximum benefits from the revenue generated.”
The director-general said a key development objective of the government regarding Ghana’s oil discovery was to grow the economy rapidly to achieve accelerated development and industrialisation.
“It is anticipated that the development of the oil and gas industry would be a source of accelerated growth, poverty reduction and general prosperity to the people of Ghana,” he said.
Dr Boeh-Ocansey said the active involvement of Ghanaians in the oil and gas development through local content and participation had become a major policy issue.
He said it was the desire of the government and the people that the control as well as the benefits in oil and gas discovery and production would remain with Ghanaians.
Dr Boeh-Ocansey added that for the people of Ghana to actively participate in the oil and gas sector, they needed to be aware of the opportunities in the sector that they could take advantage of.
A former President of the Ghana Institution of Engineers, Dr Robert Adjaye, in his presentation, mentioned some of the challenges to local content as relatively undeveloped industrial base, inadequate infrastructure, lack of comprehensive and integrated national capacity building programme, as well as inadequate training centres and institutions and the poor concept of time and quality.
The Vice President of the Ghana Journalists Association, Mr Affail Monney urged the journalists to play their watchdog role properly to ensure transparency and accountability in the emerging oil and gas discovery.
“Journalists in the Western Region have to serve as the eyes, ears and mouth of the entire nation as far as the oil discovery is concerned,” he stressed.