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| Cover of the book Black Gold by George Orwel |
Today oil in large commercial quantities starts to flow for the first time in Ghana. There's a big ceremony full of pomp and pageantry underway off the shores of Takoradi. We are being told not to be overly optimistic and also not to order our range rovers just yet. Frankly, I am yet to fully appreciate what positive impacts the oil can have for Ghana. In addition, the picture on the front cover of today's Daily Graphic showing whales washed ashore on a beach close to the oil zone is far from comforting. My oceanography knowledge is set to zero but beached whales can never really be a positive sign. Despite my skepticism, if we have the right policies in place governing how we handle our oil, we could potentially reap positive benefits from this gift. The question is, do we have policies already in place?
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| Ghana Daily Graphic Newspaper 15 December 2010: Beached whale in oil zone |
5 comments:
Thanks for this Abena. I must have read somewhere that the oil will ONLY be worth 250 million dollars in the first year. Great news its flowing but i was expecting more dosh to be made out of it
From what I've read in the papers Abena, we have some in place and are working on others. But I've learnt that we don't abide by our policies or laws in GH. Even if we have the policies in place what is the likelihood we'll abide by them?
@Nii Thanks for stopping by. Not sure about earnings in the first year but the estimate I heard on Good Morning Ghana 2 days ago from one of the ministers was an annual revenue of $1billion for Ghana.
@Boatemaa Lovely to hear from ya!!
Sadly, you are right that we may not follow the policies that are in place. I do feel that Ghana has gotten to the point that people in government are actually afraid of doing the wrong thing lest the media and political opponents will find out and make capital. That I think is a good thing!
BTW, you will have to really translate some of the oil legalese for the rest of us !
@Abena...ah $i bill sounds more like business :)pleasure to stop by
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