GHEITI Annual Retreat Sogakope, Villa Cisneros Hotel - January 6-9, 2012

Colleague Chief Directors and Ghana EITI National Steering Committee Members,

Good morning and happy new year to you all.

1.     I have been informed that the objective of this meeting is to take stock of the EITI implementation in 2011 and plan for 2012. It is a nice way to start the New Year with an assessment of our work in 2011 and a discussion of strategies for 2012.

Investment inflow into the country’s mining sector hit 770 million dollars last year, up from the 2009 figure of 726 million dollars. This brings the total money pumped into the sector within the last 10 years to approximately 6.4 billion dollars. The investments came from companies that are engaged in gold production, exploration and support services.

Mr. Paul Sowley, General Manager of Environment and Social Responsibility of the Ahafo Mine of Newmont Ghana, has reiterated that the company’s commitment to involve all stakeholders in the execution of programmes that would promote unity and social cohesion. “The involvement of all our 10 communities host communities around the mine amongst others is to strengthen cordial relations and foster unity between the communities and the mine,” he said.

Pursuant to Section 8 of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act, Act 815, 2011 (PRMA), which requires the Minister to publish petroleum receipts (defined in Section 6 of the Act); total output lifted; and the reference price on a quarterly basis.

Having successfully launched the 2009 GHEITI Audit Report on 26th October, 2011, the GHEITI Secretariat together with the GHEITI National Steering Committee wish to embark on a series of dissemination and capacity building workshops and community forums.

Given the negative attention that international oil companies have attracted in recent times, in respect of the perceived greed that underline their business practices, and sometimes disregard for environmental standards, it appears the Jubilee partners operating in Ghana's flagship commercial oil field are desirous to tell a different tale by ensuring that host communities also reap from their profits.

A major assurance to both Ghanaians and the country's development partners that Ghana may not after all, go the way of its neighbouring African oil producers, for whom the discovery of oil has been more of a curse than a blessing, is the declaration of intent by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to extend the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) to the oil and gas sector.

In the wake of increasing expectation of a positive impact of Ghana's oil revenues on the lives of the citizenry, it is becoming clear that such impacts will be difficult to tell if oil revenue expenditures in Ghana's budget are not disaggregated. "Once the oil revenues are not disaggregated in the budget, it will be difficult to tell how much has been allocated to the various sectors," argues Mohammed Amin Adam, Africa Against Poverty (AAP) Programme Coordinator at Ibis West Africa.

The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) Secretariat and the Multi-Stakeholder National Steering Committee (NSC) has launched the 2009 GHEITI Audit Reports at the Coconut Groove Regency Hotel, Accra on Wednesday October 26, 2011 at 9:00am.

The Ghana Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative Secretariat has held a consultative workshop for stakeholders in the oil and gas sector in the Western Region to validate a draft reporting template for capturing information on the oil and gas revenues. In 2010, the EITI was extended to cover the oil and gas sector, the template would, therefore, help the various oil industries to capture data and information in a very transparent manner. This would not only provide checks and balances, but also help capture every oil and gas revenue.