Accra, Ghana, December 16, 2017//-There was a nationwide jubilation when President John Evans Atta Mills, of blessed memory turned the valve on an offshore platform to signify Ghana’s commercial production of oil and gas in the Jubilee field of Cape Three Points in the Western Region.
It is situated in the Deepwater Tano and West Cape Three Points blocks of the Tano Basin, which is one of the three offshore sedimentary basins in Ghana.
The field jointly owned by a consortium of companies called Jubilee Joint Venture and managed by Tullow Ghana Ltd, a subsidiary of UK-based Tullow Oil Plc. Other five members of the consortium were – Kosmos Energy, Anadarko Petroleum, Petro SA and the state-owned Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).
The field which was discovered by the consortium in 2007, was named Jubilee field, because Ghana was celebrating its 50th anniversary at that time.
It was hoping to produce 55,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), increasing to 120,000 bpd in six months. It currently produces over 70,000 bpd.
President Mills, who on that momentous 15th December, 2010, commissioned the Jubilee field which ushered Ghana into commercial oil production, was expected to earn more revenues for the development of the country.
Ghanaians undoubtedly welcomed the news, as it could enhance revenue generation and job creation, and significantly improve the national economy.
At the time of chalking this historic feat, Ghana did not have most of its laws in place to properly police the burgeoning oil and gas industry.
As a result of this, many people, including oil experts, economists and civil society actors to express concern that Ghana would be afflicted by the “resource curse” which faces resource endowment countries in Africa.
The “resource curse” often marked Africa’s oil and mining industries: decades of extraction that often saw only a few getting richer but the majority getting poorer, economic distortions caused by improperly managed resource wealth and hardly any money set aside for times when commodity prices dip or the wells dry up.
For Ghana, examples of such problems are very close to home. Nigeria, its West African neighbour and the continent’s largest oil producer saw successive governments deplete the estimated $400 billion earned from crude oil sales since the 1970s.
Moreover, Ghana’s own record in managing mineral revenues after a hundred years of gold mining is nothing to write home about.
UNMET EXPECTATIONS
Eight years into the commercial production of the oil and gas resources, Ghanaian expectations were that their economic woes were over, as the cost of living and doing business in the country were going to be improved.
These expectations are yet to be met. The better living conditions, jobs, good infrastructure promised them by the government and the oil companies upon arrival of the oil wealth, are yet to see the light.
‘The people’s expectations were so high. We are in the eighth year of commercial oil production to the 10th year of the discovery of oil, there have been influxes of people into the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis. They thought that when the oil starts flowing they would just line up with jerry cans, get oil and then go and swim in money,” an opinion leader of the area, George Arthur stated.
CHALLENGES
With the surge in oil production activities in Ghana, the twin-city of Sekondi-Takoradi, has become one of the most preferred settlements in the country. This is because the western regional capital city, which is about 225km from the nation’s capital, Accra is the epicentre of the oil production activities.
Many people including foreigners have migrated to the city and surrounding communities with the hope that when the country’s 1.5 billion oil reserve bubble finally bursts, they would tap in on the abundant moneys stashed in this ‘black gold’.
“Since oil was discovered here in 2007 and its subsequent production in 2010, the social and economic statuses of the region especially the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis has completely changed. There are several economic and social impacts”, he added.
Additionally, some residents of the oil city told African Eye Report that the oil production has aggravated their living conditions to a point that they could no longer bear.
Although poverty statistics are hard to come by, the prevalence of poverty in the region and the country at large is noticeable to even first-time visitors.
Papa Kwaku Anim, a retiree who turned to taxi cab plying to eke out a living, fumed that; “the oil city tag is just a name. We are not benefiting from the oil”.
“Before the commercial production of the oil, we were thinking that our children would get jobs from the multinational oil firms such Tullow, Kosmos, Hess Petroleum, among others, but they are yet to be employed”, he told African Eye Report who was in the region to assess the impact of oil on the lives of the people there.
“Life in the city used to be ‘sweet’. But with the arrival of oil, prices of basic commodities are astronomically high which most residents cannot afford”, he lamented.
An assembly member of the Sekondi -Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA), Sampson Nimako Darko added: “The oil find has made life more unbearable for the people of Sekondi-Takoradi residents from rent to prices of goods and services”.
Residents in the major cities in the region, including Takoradi and Sekondi are now experiencing heavy traffic congestions since the commercial production of oil began. This is caused by the influx people who trooped to the region in search of oil jobs, he explained.
As, Mr. Darko put it: “Commuting in the region is more frustrating than in Accra”. “It was not like this at all”.
He added that the number of oil firms and other businesses which opened offices in the two cities mentioned above because of the oil resource could not be counted.
“These oil firms in particular use heavy duty vehicles on the roads in the region to transport goods including oil waste within the region.
While other businesses who engage in light work also share the limited roads in the region with other motorists thereby causing damage to the roads”.
“This further aggravated the road infrastructure situation in the metropolis and the region as a whole, which depends largely on the central government funds to undertake development projects”.
Furthermore, rental accommodation has shot up to the level that many residents, especially the young graduates can no long bear. As a result of this, most young people in the oil city are being accommodated by their relatives and friends”, Mr Darko said.
Some young graduates disclosed: “Several house owners have reallocated their houses to expatriates working at the Jubilee field and other related oil companies at highly exorbitant fees that locals cannot afford”.
Also, some of house owners have their facilities re-constructed as offices for potential occupants, many of whom are expatriates and other local consultants or workers of the oil field and its related businesses.
Hakim Ibrahim, who lives around the Takoradi Zongo area, noted that since the oil production, some tenants have thrown out their homes by greedy landlords and landladies.
He explained: “These greedy landlords and landladies forcefully reject their tenants and give their properties to expatriates who virtually invaded and took over the twin-city”. But, the government and the municipal assembly are yet to intervene on the plight of the people.
Besides, the general living conditions in the twin-city had risen to an all time high, with prices of goods and services going up.
“For instance, an ordinary ‘fante-kenkey’ is sold above GH¢1. Before the oil production, we were buying the same kenkey for 40 pesewas”, some workers of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority said at the Takoradi port.
While a roadside fried rice popularly known in Ghana as ‘check check’ which goes for GH¢2 in Accra, is selling at GH¢5 in Sekondi-Takoradi and its environs, Madam Patience Korkor, a teacher of one of the Senior High Schools in the metropolis added.
Also, due to the depreciation of the cedi (Ghanaian currency), prices of imported goods have shot up in the municipality.
Apart from the precarious living conditions, nationals from Nigeria, Togo, Ivory Coast and China among others, who have invaded the area are further making lives difficult for the indigenes.
Most Nigerians living in the southern part of Ghana have migrated to the Western Region of Ghana because of the oil deposit. There have been reports that some of these Nigerians who migrated to the region are natives of the troubling Niger Delta State which is a home to Nigeria’s oil wealth.
Sadly, these Nigerians with their long years in oil expertise are bulldozing their way through the Ghanaian oil industry, resulting in most young Ghanaians being left out in the hydrocarbon industry.
The rate at which oil producing countries, especially in West Africa is witnessing unprecedented period of bloody clashes should be a wakeup call for Ghana, a renowned security expert, Lord Aikins Adusei warned.
REVENUES
Figures from the Public Interest Accountability Committee (PIAC) report and the government indicated that since the production of oil and gas in commercial quantities in 2010, the country has received a total of US$4.009billion from the sale of 253,085,873 barrels of crude oil.
The sources of these revenues to the state are- surface rentals, corporate tax, carried and participating interest, royalties, and other avenues namely- licencing fees, bonuses, and additional entitlements.
Besides, the budding oil and gas sector has been a major contributor to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). It also created a number of jobs for the youth in the upstream, midstream and downstream.
These oil companies also through their corporate social responsibility activities have built schools, health facilities, potable water, among others for communities in the West Region.
The Communications Manager of Kosmos Energy Ghana, Madam Ruth Adashie, said the companies wanted to live a lasting impact in the country’s agric sector hence their decision to invest in it.
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, African Eye Report
Email: mk68008@gmail.com