PIAC is not starving alone –Finance Ministry

Lack of funding is “all over across the country” and is not peculiar to the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), Dr. Kwadwo Asenso of the Oil and Gas Unit at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP) has said.

“Not everybody has whatever we put in the budget. Go to SSNIT, we haven’t paid everything. It is across the country; MDAs have not received their allocations,” Dr. Asenso said in response to questions about the desperate situation of PIAC at a forum in Accra.

“Why would there be a deliberate effort to kill PIAC when we know that some of the amendments which have been proposed to the Petroleum Revenue Management Law have come from PIAC itself?”

Dr. Asenso added: “So please, let us be very factual when we are discussing these things because we are also human beings working with you, and in everything we do we are open and transparent. If we hide anything from you and you point it out, that is fine. But once we know the issues, when we come to the public domain let’s say it as it is. That is how we are all going to work together.

“We are faced with budgetary challenges; it is all over…have you asked the Ministry of Local Government how much they have received, or have you asked the Ministry of Health how much they have received? It is not deliberate. We are doing our very best, and PIAC will attest to that.”

The citizen-based committee, mandated by law to report on petroleum revenue receipts by government and how the monies are being spent, was recently evicted from its rented office premises and has since been “perching” with the Natural Resource Governance Institute, a Civil Society Organisation.

Over US$2billion have accrued to government coffers so far as oil receipts, and PIAC in its 2013 Annual Report found that oil-funded projects were spread too thinly -- particularly regarding road projects -- leading to inefficiencies.

It therefore advised government to “ensure that allocations of the ABFA to road and other infrastructure projects are sufficient to make a meaningful impact in the budget year of which such allocations are made, in order that such projects may be completed in a much shorter time. This will save the nation from the problem of cost-escalations, which extended project durations inevitably occasion”.

The law establishing the 13-member committee, the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (Act 815), mandates it to issue a semi-annual and an annual report by the 15th September and 15th March each year.

Due to funding challenges, however, the committee is yet to issue reports for the 2014 financial year.