A civil society platform on oil and gas, Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), has chided successive governments for failing to utilise proceeds from the extractive sector to the benefit of Ghanaians.
At the media launch of a campaign to tackle corruption in Ghana’s extractive sector, the Campaign Coordinator for ISODEC, Dr. Steve Manteaw, said corruption in the sector could be described as the main catalyst of the government’s inability to fully harness proceeds from extractive activities such as mining and oil drilling.
“We are a country endowed with mineral resources. Yet, we are still poor. There must be something fundamentally wrong with how we are managing these resources. The UN-sponsored world summit on Sustainable Development pinpointed corruption as the reason for this development in general dependent countries. The citizens do not get to know what has been negotiated in their names by their duty bearers,” he said.
Low dividends worrying
Dividends accruing to Ghana from mining activities have significantly been a topical issue in terms of revenue generation for the country.
This is because the country is reported to have been losing millions in revenue to the mining sector over reports of little or no profits by the mining companies.
These among others are the key suggestions in the 2015 Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) report on the oil and gas industry as well as the mining sector.
The EITI report was concerned with reconciling the actual amount of cash received by the government from companies in the sector within a given period.
The report, albeit delayed also highlights issues of discrepancies in the figures quoted by the oil or mining companies as well as their counterparts in the mining industry.
While some were regarded as positive where the companies quoted figures higher than what the government produced, other negative discrepancies occurred where the opposite is the case.