Volta Regional Business Forum in Houston

PIC: Some Ghanaians participants with the Volta Regional Minister

June 12, 2002 was the date for the first ever conference to promote economic development of the Volta Region in the United States of America. Featured under the title “Volta Region Development: The American Opportunity” was The Honorable Kwasi Owusu Yeboah, the Minister of State for the Volta Region. Also present were officials of the Houston-based company, Vanco Energy, who is Vice President for Publicity, Ms. Janice Van Dyke Walden chaired the function. About twelve business executives, representing about 30 companies from the Volta Region of Ghana attended and so were several Houston-based American companies with interest in a variety of investment opportunities in Ghana and in the Volta Region in particular. Mr. Jack Webb the honorary council of Ghana, and conference architect and organizer Dr. Yao Ababio also the current President of the Council for Ewe Associations in North America (CEANA), hosted the forum participants.

Mr. Yeboah presented an interesting and informative overview of the geographical and economic features and potentials of the Volta Region. He emphasized the advantages the Volta Region presents as ideally situated for trade between Ghana and her eastern neighbouring countries, most notably Nigeria. He assured attendees that his administration in Ho was ready and able to help potential foreign investors. He indicated that the regional administration has located land banks to make land acquisition easy and identified major economic opportunities in each of the Volta Region’s ten districts that can be of significant interest to investors. In fact, “ready made business plans have been prepared to assist potential investors”. He assured those in attendance that opportunities existed in roads construction to link the Northern Regions with Accra through the Volta, the development of salt production in the Keta basin, exploitation of the mineral wealth, development of the chemicals industry, and in the agriculture and timber sector.

The President and CEO of Vanco Energy Company, Mr. Gene Van Dyke whose company sponsored the luncheon to the event briefed the audiences on some hi-lights of his company’s activities in Ghana. The chief operations officer in Ghana Mr. John Craven discussed Vanco’s deepwater operations in Africa and with specific reference to Ghana. Vanco he said, thinks there is a potential for a large petroleum discovery of the deep-sea coast of Sekondi – Takoradi in the West Tano basin where they have a 2.5 million acres of deep-sea Petroleum agreement awaiting Ghana government consent for seismic studies to start. Vanco he said were specialist in deep sea production technology and are looking forward to helping Ghana be self sufficient in oil production, Mr. Van Dyke indicated that Vanco has discovered and is developing significant deep water oil reserves off the coast of Equatorial Guinea and in the Ivory Coast. It also has significant concessions in at least three other African coastal countries. He certainly did a good job advertising Vanco’s desire to finalize the acquisition of the Ghanaian concession which they are seeking asserting that the Ghanaian people through the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) will have a 15% carried interest in the whole deal while Vanco will have a 100% operating interest. Together with the average in 33% taxes to the Ghana government, there should be significant contribution to Ghana’s economy.

The participating companies from the Volta Region of Ghana, most of them private businesspersons, sought for a total of about US$150 million in direct investments of. Over lunch, participants had time to discuss their companies and interests with their American counterparts, and exchange necessary information for future contacts. It is hoped that they would benefit directly from these interactions and be able to develop their businesses to their fullest potentials. This conference has made a first step to inform the world of the potentials of Ghana’s Volta Region. It closing the forum, Dr. Yao Ababio thanked Ewe Association of Houston for originating and hosting the first ever known Business Development Forum on the Volta Region outside Ghana. He indicated his interest in seeing to it that the Volta Region developed rapidly as a stepping stone to the whole of Ghana doing the same, hence the interest in getting potential investors and local businesspersons together. He hoped that the forum in the USA would be a bi-annul event interspersed with similar forum in Ho or any other relevant location in the Volta Region of Ghana.