The government’s gold for oil barter strategy, according to Benjamin Boakye, Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), is just a scheme to give politicians control over the nation’s minerals.
The policy will obviously fail to accomplish its stated goal, claims ACEP.
The “gold for oil” system solely aims to give politicians influence over the value chain for both gold and oil.
Other values cannot be inferred.
It goes without saying that other unidentified causes, not gold, will be to blame if cheap oil enters Ghana.
“The government has still not been forthright about the cost of the structure to justify its competitiveness to the current private sector-led approach,” citinewsroom.com quoted Ben Boakye.
He, therefore, lambasted stakeholders and government agencies who are backing the policy.
He noted that these organizations including the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST), Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), and the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) are historically poor performers in oil and gold trading.
Ben Boakye also raised concerns over the lack of transparency in the government’s dissemination of information as far as the project is involved.
“Interventions of this magnitude should not leave people in doubt in the interest of good governance and assurance of the international community which has shown significant interest in Ghana’s gold for oil programme,” he added.
He explained that “The government also needs to be cautious and guided by the challenging context of state agencies in the oil and gold business because when these agencies make losses, it is the public that pays, and the energy sector is already inundated with debts because of similar trading abuses. There are no guarantees in the current structure that insulates the public from debt.”
