Economic And Social Impact Of The Emerging Ghana Oil Industry

A SYMPOSIUM
Proposed Panel Themes

April
29 and 30, 2010
Howard University
Blackburn Center, Washington, D.C.

Panel 1 – April 29 10: 15 am – 11:45 am
– Room 148
Good Governanceand the Emerging Oil and Gas Industry in
Ghana
Good
governancerequires fair legal frameworks that are enforced
impartially. It also requires full protection of human rights, particularly
those of minorities. Impartial enforcement of laws requires an independent
judiciary and an impartial and incorruptible police force. What good governance
practicesexist or need to be
put in place in Ghana for the emerging oil and gas industry?

PANEL 2 April 29 10: 15 – 11:45 am –
Room 150
“GHANA
OIL BUSINESS CONTRACTS: QUESTIONS AND DOUBTS ABOUT TRANSPARENCY”

Suspicions andviews have emerged among some active Ghanaians indicating lack of
adequate transparency regarding contracts the government of Ghana, through the
Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) has signed with oil exploration
companies. These suspicions have fueled social cynicism towards the oil
discovery enterprise of Ghana engendering rancorous national discourse. Thus,
it is relevant to ask the question whether the conduct of GNPC opened or closed
transparency in Ghana’s oil discovery process. Hence the panel subject: “Oil
Business Contracts: Questions and Doubts about Transparency.”

Panel 3 April 29 2:00 – 3:45 pm – Room 148
Will the emerging oil and gas industry in Ghana help transform the
Ghanaian economy?
At the time of self-government in 1951,
82% of the labor force in the country was engaged subsistence agriculture/cocoa
farming or petty trading while 18% was employed on a wage/salary basis.
Two-fifths of those in wage/salary employment were in the public sector. After
short-lived attempts by the CPP administration under Kwame Nkrumah to transform
the economy through industrialization, the structure of the economy is no
different from what it was in the pre-independence years. After over 25 years
of World Bank/IMF prescribed programs of ERP, SAP and HIPC, one of the
over-riding consequences of these programs in Ghana has been a shrinking of the
formal sector and the expansion of the informal sector.

Between 1991 and 2002, the informal sector including agriculture accounted for
83.6% of total employment. By 2005/2006 the informal sector employment reached
86.7%. In these informal sector employment opportunities, poverty levels have
remained high, productivity levels low, and decent work deficits are widespread.
Under SAP and HIPC programs persistent unemployment, under-employment, and
growth in precarious forms of employment have remained the central features of
the Ghanaian economy. How might the oil and gas revenues help reverse such
trends?

We need to ask the question: Will Ghana
use the oil and gas revenue in order to achieve the structural transformation
of the country’s economy away from over-reliance on primary production, and the
reduction of the massive size of the informal sector?

Panel 4 April 29 2:00 – 3:45 pm – Room 150
The Extractive Industry Sectorof the Ghanaian
Economy
Ghana is rich in gold, bauxite,
manganese, diamonds, and other minerals. Ghana’s gold has been the basis of a
well-established extractive industry (EI) for decades. Because such resources
are typically limited and non-renewable, the development of
EI cannot be a long-term foundation for
the economy. However, it is possible for
government to exploit such resources
and invest the revenues so as to create sustainable
growth and development. What lessons
have been learned from the existing EI in the country?

Panel 5 April 30 10:15 – 11: 45 am – Hilltop
Managing the oil and gas revenue in Ghana: What lessons can be
learned from other countries?
Numerous studies have linked natural
resources such as oil and gas to negative outcomes such as conflict,
authoritarianism, high corruption, economic instability, increased poverty, and
the destruction of the social contract. The oil curse thus threatens the
limited signs of Ghana’s success since 1992 after four decades of
political and economic instability.

What lessons can Ghana draw from other
countries that are rich in natural resources that have successfully managed
revenues from their natural resource wealth to avoid the “oil curse?”

PANEL 6 April 30 10:15 – 11:45 am -
Hilltop
“GHANA
OIL REVENUE – ALTERNATIVES FOR RESOURCES ALLOCATION AND REVENUE UTILIZATION.”

There has been rising expectation by
active citizens regarding potential for enhanced economic development and
upward social transformation of Ghana since public announcement of discovery of
crude oil in commercial quantities off-shore in the country’s West Coast. The
manner in which revenue from Ghana’s oil find could be utilized for positive
economic benefit has been the persistent dominant focus for conversation among
significant number of Ghanaians.
At one extreme, there are Ghanaians who
have tended to see the expected revenue from the oil find as the ultimate
engine for instant economic development of the country. Corollary, There are
Ghanaians and foreign observers who have cautioned against over-expectation of
the amount of revenue from the oil find and the potential economic benefit for
Ghana. The latter group tends to see the expected revenue as a means for preparing
the ground for economic transformation going into the future. In this
regard, this is a suggested subject for panel discussion: “Ghana Oil Revenue –
Alternatives for Resources Allocation and
Revenue Utilization.”
Panel 7 Plenary Session - April
30 12:15 – 1:45 pm - Hilltop
The energy problems of Ghana, how might the oil and gas discovery
help?
Fuel wood is the most used energy
source in the country. Fuel wood consumption and commercial logging for timber
pose an energy and environmental crisis as a result of wood forest depletion. Since
1981, the
annual rate of deforestation in Ghana has been two percent/year or 750 hectares
each year. Ghana's tropical forest area is now just 25 percent of its original
size. Deforestation has claimed an enormous toll through the ages in
environmental damage, economic deterioration and human misery. This
especially affects remote rural communities that have no access to fuels such
as liquid petroleum gas (LPG) and who depend substantially on burning collected
local biomass for their energy needs. Currently, only about 6.2 per cent of the
entire population used Liquefied
Petroleum Gas(LPG), and about 94 per cent or more than 16.8 million
people used traditional fuel such as charcoal, firewood and crop residue,
despite their inconvenience and inefficiency.

Will the emerging oil and gas industry
offer a solution to the impending energy
crisisin the country?


PANEL 7 – Plenary Session - April 30
12:15 – 1:45 pm - Hilltop
“GHANA
OIL DRILLING: CONSIDERING BETTER ALTERNATIVES TO NATURAL GAS FLARING.”

In
the context of rising globalization, economically and technologically powerful
non-state private corporations dominate the crude oil industry business with
implications for foreign policy action decision-making involving the nations
where the corporate actors are based. In short, the oil business has become
very globalized irrespective of the geographical location of the oil
find. In some instances, the globalized oil business entities have not
been seen to have acted in a fair manner towards people in the communities
where they drill for oil. In this instance, it is germane to ask whether
participation of foreign of foreign oil companies in Ghana have helped or
harmed development of the oil industry in the country.

Sponsors: Department of African
Studies, Howard University in collaboration with the CPP of the Washington, DC
Metropolitan Area.
Speakers
will include representatives from the World Bank, Oxfam, Center for Global
Development, Revenue Watch Institute, the academia, and Embassies in Washington
D.C.
Contact:
Kojo Arthur - adinkraba2@yahoo.com (Tel. 301-592-7615)
Yaw Adu-Otu - aduasare1@hotmail.com
(Tel. 703-615-1821)
Dr. Peter Intsiful - pintsiful@howard.edu