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Opinions of Friday, 1 October 2010

Columnist: Tawiah, Francis

Second large oil field discovered, ....

Ghana:Second large oil field discovered, must Ghanaians be afraid of Colluption? Do we need to borrow now from China?

Off the coast of Ghana, a second large oil field has been discovered , as the oil company Tullow Oil said. Under the current of the Gulf of Guinea,we have oil reserves between 70 million and 550 million barrels of oil.

Despite that, there is still a growing concern that Ghana oil findings could cause similar problems as in neighboring Nigeria with corruption and oil pollution.

Must Ghanaians bei afraid of colluption in the Management of our oil revenue?

The second discovered oil field in Ghana, the so-called Owo oil field alone which is between 70 million and 550 million barrels of oil, according to the British oil company Tullow, can fetch Ghana, revenue in Billions of Dollars.

It was reported after the discovery of the Jubilee field as the second highest oil reserve. In 2007, the then President John Kufuor declared that Ghana have oil reserves of three billion Barrels, meaning a bright future for the country.

If Ghanaian People are awaiting such a big revenue from the oil production which will soon start, do we still need to borrow such a huge amount from China?

Ghanaians are therefore seeing growing tendacy and are concerned, that the recent discoveries could have similar consequences as in the neighboring oil-rich Nigeria , where after 50 years of oil production corruption and pollution are still very common.

Based on the experience of neighboring oil production countries, the Ghana Government must always be under pressure to deal responsibly with its oil resources, the London analyst Rolake Akonola of the consulting firm Eurasia Group, said, Ghana must now adjust the commercial use existing laws on oil production. The oil could bring the West African country(Ghana) revenue in billions.

FRANCIS TAWIAH (Duisburg - Germany)