In 10 years of commercial scale crude oil production, Ghana has raked up $4.5Million as proceeds from oil companies into the local content fund.
The amount is indicated in the latest report of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), an independent statutory body mandated to promote transparency and accountability in the management of petroleum revenues in Ghana.
Receipts into the fund are superintended by the Petroleum Commission, the country’s upstream regulatory agency, which is empowered to implement the deduction of 1% of the sum of any upstream contract.
Ghana’s local content and local participation regulations (L.I 2204) were promulgated in November 2013, “to inter alia promote maximisation of value-addition and job creation through the use of local expertise, goods and services business, financing in the petroleum industry value chain and their retention in Ghana”.
The Local Content Committee established by the Board of the Petroleum Commission is required to oversee the implementation of LI2204.
The Petroleum Commission, in the last one year (January to December 2020), established and resourced a Local Content Fund Secretariat at its headquarters in Accra. It appointed an Interim Coordinator of the Fund, who was endorsed by the Minister of Energy. It also developed a draft Local Content Fund Operational Guidelines.
This story had earlier been published in the January 2021 edition of the Africa Oil+Gas Report.
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