Graphic Online: Africa: Wednesday,
November 02, 2016.
The Deputy
Africa Director of the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), Mr
Emmanuel Kuyole, has said passing the current Right to Information (RTI) Bill
would be retrogressive as far as the extractive sector was concerned.
This, he
explained, was as a result of non-disclosure clauses in the bill about
accessing information on extractive operations, something he said would erode
gains made on promoting transparency and accountability in the sector.
In an
interview, Mr Kuyole said in the extractive sector, efforts have been made,
especially for petroleum to have some very progressive transparency and
accountability provisions in the Petroleum Revenue management Act (PRMA), 815,
and ,therefore, the RTI Bill must build on the gains and not reverse it.
“It is a good
bill and I think we should support to get it passed, but we have to make sure
we pass a very progressive law. There are very serious non-disclosure clauses
in that law, especially with respect to extractives where some information is
kept confidential for whatever reasons,” he said.
He added, “We
need to have a freedom to information law, but it has to be progressive
otherwise we are basically going to have a law that reverses some of the gains
we have already made. We don’t want a right to information law that will
question why citizens want the information of companies or contracts that have
been signed.”
Citing some
progress made in achieving transparency in the petroleum sector, Mr Kuyole said
the Ministry of Finance provided the Public Interest and Accountability
Committee (PIAC) with information that is published by PIAC to enable citizens
understand what was happening in the sector.
“The new
Petroleum Exploration and Production (E&P) makes a provision for a registry
to provide information on oil contracts and licenses. So to have a freedom of
information law passed now, we have to just build on these gains,” he said.
Law not
passed yet
The RTI bill
has been in Parliament for over a decade now awaiting passage, something Mr
Kuyole said would provide ample time for these non-disclosure clauses to be
addressed before passing.
“The good
thing is that the law hasn’t been passed yet, and so the point is that they
should take a look at that law carefully and make sure the final product that
comes out is very progressive,” he said.
Uncertain
outlook
The Executive
Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Dr Mohammed Amin Adam,
speaking at the forum to analyse the manifestos of the various political
parties said the focus of ACEP was to make the election an issue-based one with
focus on the energy and petroleum sector and to help broaden the frontiers of
Ghana’s democracy through issue-based political campaigning.
He said the
focus on the sector was informed by their belief that the energy sector outlook
from 2017 presented significant levels of uncertainty, and ,therefore,
political parties must clearly demonstrate how they intend to confront them.
Jubilee
production suffered this year as a result of the production problem with the
turret on which the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah is anchored. But with TEN production
expected to peak in the first quarter of 2017, and first oil form Sankofa
expected also in 2017, oil production is projected to reach 200,000 barrels a
day.
If crude
prices remain at current levels or even above it, Ghana will be making
additional revenues from oil to provide significant fiscal relief for the
economy.
“Given the
resource constraints in our country against competing development needs, the
citizens of Ghana must scrutinise the manifesto promises of the parties to
determine which party has the best policy for managing and maximising the use
of our oil revenue as a development opportunity,” he said.
He added,
“unfortunately, beyond the projected oil production from the producing and development
fields, we are likely not to add significant levels of production for a long
while although most of our producing fields would have entered their natural
decline phase.”
Other factors
that affect the oil outlook, he said, also included the provisional ruling by
the International Tribunal on the Law of the Seas on Ghana’s maritime dispute
and the average period of seven long years between oil discovery and production
as we strive to make new significant discoveries.
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