A Visiting Fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Prof John Asafu-Adjaye has called for the speedy passage of key bills to enhance the level of transparency and accountability in the management of Ghana’s oil and gas resources.
According to him, the passage of the Right to Information, Petroleum Exploration and Production , Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and the Marine Pollution bills would further improve the resources management in the country.
The Accra based economic and governance think tank’s visiting fellow made the call at the launch of the 2015 edition of P-TRACK Index in Accra.
Prof Asafu-Adjaye who is also a renowned Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland, Australia urged the Ghanaian Parliament to accelerate the passage of the Budget Act to enhance the august House’s ability to conduct comprehensive analysis of the West African country’s national budgets.
Additionally, he recommended; “the formation of a committee with representation from all major stakeholders to work with the Minister of Finance in selecting projects for funding under the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA)”.
To enhance transparency in the award of contracts and licenses, the lead author (Prof Asafu-Adjaye) also recommended a more open and transparent process of awarding contracts and licenses, with more public disclosure of information about the process.
While, oversight bodies such as parliamentary committees including the Public Accounts Committee and the Select Committee on Minerals and Energy and the Public Interest and Accountability Committee and (PIAC) must be adequately resourced to enable them function more effectively in their respective roles.
The IEA initiated the P-TRACK Index project in 2011 to monitor transparency and accountability in the management of Ghana’s oil and gas resources. The 2015 index like others focused on four key aspects of the management of oil and gas revenues-Revenue Transparency, Expenditure Transparency, Contract Transparency, and Ghana Petroleum Funds (GPFs). Transparency in each of these areas is assessed on the basis of a series of questions, according to Prof Asafu-Adjaye.
The P-TRACK Index is constructed as a simple average of the questions for each of these four components. Benchmarked against the previous two P-TRACK reports, this year’s report, he explained allows them to assess how much progress has been made in enhancing transparency and accountability in Ghana’s oil and gas industry.
On Revenue Transparency, Prof Asafu-Adjaye and his team of researchers have observed steady progress in efforts to improve revenue transparency over the previous two reports (2011 and 2012).
They stated: “The main improvements have come from the frequency and availability of reports. However, we did not find any improvement in the quality of the reports. One component of revenue transparency where there is much room for improvement is the institutional environment”.
In the area of Expenditure Transparency, the researchers observed an improvement in the frequency of the reports. But, they found no change in the quality of the reports. The team also observed improvement in their projects sub-index, which tracks progress in the allocation of funds and distribution of projects under the ABFA.
According to them, in the absence of a long term development plan for Ghana, decisions on expenditures in the priority areas are at the discretion of the Minister of Finance.
Of the four components of the P-TRACK Index, Contract Transparency showed the least improvement over the reporting period. The only improvement comes from the establishment of the Petroleum Commission to regulate the oil and gas sector and to advise the government on the award of contracts and licenses.
On the whole, transparency in the management of the GFPs showed the highest improvement out of the four components of the index over the reporting period.
African Eye News.com
