In the past few weeks, our media landscape has been dominated with the controversial subject of whether to collateralize our oil revenue or not. There are some interesting trends as far as this debate is concerned that I will like to share with readers.
The Petroleum Revenue Management Bill was drafted by the “ministries”. I suspect the Ministry of Energy, Finance and Attorney Generals Office were involved in the drafting of this bill. When they completed it, they sent it to cabinet. Cabinet deliberated on this bill for sometime. All the necessary adjustments, arguments, debates were exhausted at the cabinet level with our President in the chair as leader of cabinet. In all these deliberations, people with the highest political power made their contributions; I want to believe including the Vice President, John Mahama. Then the bill was finally approved and sent to parliament for approval as our constitution require.
When the bill was brought to parliament, the minority accepted the bill. They thought it was a good bill which will ensure our oil revenue is managed well for the development of our dear nation. They held the view that, the bill in that form was going to ensure that, Ghanaians feel and see the blessings from the oil revenue. During all these deliberations in parliament, the controversial STX Project which was supposed to have been signed long ago has been stalled because of obvious objections raised by the minority some weeks back.
The debate of whether to collateralize our oil revenue can not be distanced from the STX Project which has stalled for some months. The STX Project has stalled because government has not been able to convince the Koreans how they are going to pay back the loan facility for the housing project. The STX Project was hardly approved by parliament because of various factors including the option thrown in by the Ghanaian estate developers that they can provide those housing units at a far cheaper price without compromising on quality. In fact the Ghanaian estate developers provided technical details which the Korean construction firm failed to provide. But government seems to have settled on the foreigners no matter how affordable and reasonable the Ghanaian proposal was. In a nut shell, the proposals from the Ghanaian estate developers were rejected for the foreigners.
A grand and colorful meeting was scheduled at the Castle, seat of government for the final signing of the project. However, the signing could not take place because of the reason I provided above. Indeed the Korean Ambassador to Ghana has reiterated this same reason that government of Ghana had not provided enough evidence to prove how it was going to pay back the loan, though sovereign guarantee and insurance had been provided for. In the heat of the STX debate, the minority raised the issue of the Koreans seeking our oil for the STX Project. It was flatly denied by government officials and spokespersons including the sector Minister, Hon. Alban Bagbin. At a press conference, Hon. Bagbin described the concerns raised by the minority as sheer jealousy. Even though it will be recalled that, when the STX agreement was presented to parliament there was a clause to use the oil as a guarantee for the loan facility, however, after resistance from the minority and other civil society organizations, that clause was removed.
Coming back to the issue of the Petroleum Revenue Management Bill, the executive, who drafted and approved the bill now say they want the clause which they inserted in the current bill which prevents government from collateralizing oil revenue removed. This sudden change of mind by these same drafters of the bill raises a lot of questions. There are suggestions that this bill was drafted by foreigners. If its true foreigners drafted this bill, then how could our leaders just take anything from foreigners without sufficiently amending it to suit our needs and plans? Another question that comes to mind is the issue about competence. Don’t we have competent materials in government who could have drafted this bill? Again, why didn’t the executive amend the clause before bringing the bill to parliament? Why is government now portraying the minority as those who are opposed to development when they, the executive drafted this same bill? We can not forget the assurances given by our Vice President to some Chinese companies that our oil will be given to them in return for some services even though, the bill is yet to be passed in to law.
This government is not managing this nation and our new found oil with the seriousness it deserves. There seem to be no clear direction. I recall how this whole STX Project started. I can say government had no intention of building housing units. Because if government had any such intention, we would have seen it featured in the President’s State of the Nation Address or the Budget for 2010. One gets the impression, the Koreans brought a proposal for building housing units. Suddenly our directionless government decided to adopt the proposal without looking back. It is a difficult situation we find ourselves a country.
I believe that this debate over whether to collateralize our oil revenue has everything to do with the STX Project. Now the question we should ask ourselves is that, should we use this chunk of our new found revenue for housing units? There is no doubt these housing units are far beyond the reach of even the middle class in our society how much more the masses. Why should we spend this much of our oil money in housing units which will benefit just a few rich?
I LOVE GHANA.
PATRIOT FAISAL IBRAHIM
Mobile_faisal@hotmail.com
0262232000
The author is an Associate Member of the Association of Business Executives, UK. He is also a blogger on facebook ( www.facebook.com/faisal.ibrahim1)
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