Kumasi, Sept. 23, GNA – The Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (Ghana EITI) has said that the enormous role mining, oil and gas sectors play in the natural resource sector calls for more transparency. It also called for judicious management of revenues from these strategic areas, and reiterated the need for natural resource revenues to be publicly disclosed to promote transparency and accountability.

Alhaji Bashiru Abdul Razak, Coordinator, EITI, who made the call, currently said the Initiative with support from multi-stakeholder group has produced 16 EITI Reports on the mining sector and nine reports for the oil and gas sectors.

The findings and recommendations from these reports have informed policy direction and decision making in the legislative, fiscal, and institutional angles in the mining, oil and gas sectors. Alhaji Abdul Razak was speaking at the Ashanti Regional stakeholders’ dissemination workshop on Ghana EITI 2019 reports on the mining and oil/gas sectors. The workshop was to create the required public awareness, generate interest and debate on the issues raised in the reports and pave way for stakeholder engagement on the reports as required by the EITI standard.

It was put together by the Ministry of Finance/GHEITI in collaboration with the GIZ.

Touching on proceeds from the sector, Alhaji Abdul Razak indicated that in the oil and gas sector, the State accrued a total revenue of US$66.39 million in 2020 from Royalties, Carried and Participating Interest (CAPI), Corporate Income Taxes (CIT) and surface rentals. The figure constituted seven per cent of total government revenue.

In 2021, crude oil export receipts amounted to US$3.95 billion, compared to US$2.91 billion in 2020 due to higher realised prices, despite a decline in volume exported.  He further stated that contribution of the upstream oil and gas sector to energy generation in Ghana could not be over-emphasized, adding that the gas produced from the sector was supplied for domestic generation in the country.

According to him, in 2020, a total of 88,515 million Standard Cubic Feet (MMSCF) of associated gas and non-associated gas from Jubilee, Tweneboa Enyenra Ntomme (TEN) and Sankofa Gye Nyame (SGN) fields were supplied to various thermal plants in Ghana for domestic power generation.

The mining sector in 2020 contributed approximately 41 per cent of total exports earnings, 14 per cent of total revenues and 5.5 per cent of Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), he disclosed. Gold contributes over 90 per cent of Ghana’s total mineral export and makes up 49 per cent of the country’s total export values as of December 2020.

According to data from the Bank of Ghana, spot gold price averaged US$1,799.79 per fine ounce in 2021, a marginal increase of 1.6 per cent compared to US$1,770.79 per fine ounce recorded in 2021.