Ghanans Express Fear Over Oil Discovery

Fears have been expressed by some Ghanaians that the discovery of oil in Ghana might be a resource curse rather than a blessing, citing the example of Nigeria and the poor state of Tarkwa and Obuasi after several years of mining gold.
A cross-section of Ghanaians the Business Chronicle spoke the fear because almost all African countries that produce oil have been having problems especially in the sharing of the resource.
They mentioned environmental degradation, corruption, insurgence of militants as some of the problems the community of Cape Three Point and Ghana will face if proper processes are not put in place to address them.
“Corruption had been a major feature in oil production in Nigeria, Gabon and Angola. What is the assurance that Ghana would not go the same way,” Kofi Manu, a Ghanaian said.
Callers on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM yesterday confirmed the suspicion.
With this, a panelist on the programme, Mr. Kofi Bentil, Business Development Advisor and lecturer said Ghana should learn from all the experiences from African countries that are producing oil including Nigeria, Gabon, Angola and some of the Northern Africa. He said gold and diamond mining communities in Ghana including Tarkwa and Obuasi did not benefit immensely from minerals revenues hence putting them in bad shapes.
Because of these problems, he proposed that revenue should be put beyond the reach of politicians by setting up an Oil Revenue Commission tasked to distribute oil wealth equally. This according to him will not start inevitable acts of attacks on oil installations in the area.
“They must make sure the areas the oil is taken from are the initial beneficiaries,” stressing that they must make sure all roads in the western region are built, children put into schools and livelihood improved. “Do things which will diffuse aggression,” he related.
He said if these are not done Ghana would suffer the environmental stress and social disruption may lead to attacks on installation like in the Niger delta of Nigeria.
Mr. Bentil then made a call for government to develop the Western Region saying: “We take everything from the Western Region but you try to drive through the region. The roads are bad. Develop that place and you can evacuate the oil easily and give work to the people there too. Ancillary services will spring up”.
On his part, Ato Ahoi, Minority Spokesman on energy expressed cautious excitement as such a story has been told before. He recollected an energy minister in the 1970s announcing a discovery of oil in the Saltpond Fields but could not be exploited because it was not in commercial quantities. He said:” we can find oil in commercial quantities but it could take 10 years to get it out of the ground”. All our problems are not over.
Mr. Balatey Gomay, project coordinator of Green Earth said too much of oil will make us irresponsible. Citing an example, he said Nigeria abandoned its cocoa and groundnut farms as well as its agriculture industry after discovering oil. “The groundnut pyramids of Kano have all disappeared,” he said.
He said oil alone will not solve Ghana’s problems but existing industries should be revived with money from the oil.
Mr. Gomay suggested Ghana going the Norwegian way where part of her oil revenue is put aside for the future generation. “We need to use oil to diversify the economy but not into mono-economy like what the Nigerians did,” he stated. Norway does not allow politicians to touch the money.
He supported Mr. Bentil’s assertion that an Oil Revenue Commission should be set up to share the oil money.
He called for the confirmation of the quality and quantity and the establishment of an oil revenue Commission to manage the effects of resource curse as well as find ways the reduce cost of oil.
Meanwhile, Ghana's President John Kufuor says the discovery of the country's first major oil deposit could turn the West African country into an "African tiger".
"Even without oil, we are doing so well... With oil as a shot in the arm, we're going to fly," he told the BBC.
"My joy is that I'll go down in history as the president under whose watch oil was found to turn the economy of Ghana around for the better," he said.
The discovery of 600m barrels of light oil offshore was announced on Monday.
Reserves in the Mahogany exploration well were far greater than the 250m barrels that UK-based firm Tullow Oil had earlier forecast.
Tullow, which saw its shares rise more than 12% on the news, jointly owns the West Cape block where the drilling took place with Anadarko Petroleum. Mr Kufuor
said the discovery would give a major boost to Ghana's economy.
"Oil is money, and we need money to do the schools, the roads, the hospitals. If you find oil, you manage it well, can you complain about that?" he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
He dismissed suggestions that Ghana may follow in the footsteps of other countries that have mismanaged their oil wealth. "Some are doing it well and I assure you if others failed, Ghana will succeed because this is our destiny to set the good pace for where we are. So we're going to use it well," he said.
"We're going to really zoom, accelerate, a if everything works, which I pray will happen positively, you come back in five years, and you'll see that Ghana truly is the African tiger, in economic terms for development." His sentiments were echoed in many of Ghana's newspaper headlines on Tuesday.

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