ENI, Italy’s oil and gas giant, has initiated moves to relocate the company’s Africa headquarters to Ghana.
Currently, the multinational company has its Africa headquarters in Nigeria, the biggest oil and gas producing nation in West Africa.
The Petroleum Minister, Mr Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, who disclosed this in an interview, said Ghana’s oil and gas industry expansion had goaded ENI to consider moving the head office from Africa’s most populous nation to Ghana.
He said ENI had already written officially to the ministry, announcing the decision to relocate the Africa headquarters to Ghana.
“Under this circumstance, the existing structure of the company in Ghana, hitherto limited to local operations, will be expanded to cover all of its African administrative programmes and projects,” he said.
Job creation
Mr Buah noted that the decision of ENI to relocate its headquarters to Ghana meant that opportunities for job creation would abound.
“We are obviously not oblivious of the obvious, that jobs are scarcely available, due to factors that include the skills gap and lack of immediate opportunities in the short term,” the minister said.
He said the administration of President John Dramani Mahama was laying foundations with companies such as ENI and building the right structures with the right partners, while rolling out programmes and projects to respond appropriately in terms of capacity building of Ghanaians to enhance job creation.
Our projections
“We are working. Therefore, the results, by our projections, should be manifesting sooner than expected,” the minister said.
He praised ENI for believing in Ghana, and putting in the right investment in the country’s oil and gas sector.
Mr Buah urged other international oil companies (IOCs) presently showing interest in Ghana to consider the country’s peace and tranquility, the fertile investment environment, the democratic pillars solidly laid on grounds of good governance, and establish their presence in the country without further delay.
Those already operating in the country, he said, should play fair and reasonably leverage on these thematic investment derivatives, strategically engineered by the government to inure to the benefit of all investors.
He said the government was concerned about investors, and therefore, constantly preparing the grounds to make Ghana a safe haven for both local and foreign partners. Graphic
