Government is expected to publish its income from the sale of the country’s crude oil. Similarly, companies which buy the crude would be obliged to publish the amounts they paid to government for it.

This follows cabinet approval of a document to accelerate Ghana’s affiliation to the extractive industries transparency initiative (EITI) to subject the crude and sales to public scrutiny.

EITI is a coalition of governments, civil society groups, investors and international organizations which promotes transparency and accountability in the extractive or mining industries such as gold, diamond, oil and gas.

Ghana became an EITI candidate in the mining sector in 2007 and has so far, produced three reports outlining payments and revenue from the sector. The government then backdated the receipt of revenue of the mining sector in 2004 and 2005, while the reports for the year’s 2006 and 2008, were yet to be prepared.

Disclosing this to The Times newspaper, Edward Bawa, spokesperson for the minister of energy, said the government had set up a secretariat known as the Ghana EITI (GHEITI) within the ministry of finance and economic planning to fine tune the documentation for Ghana to undergo validation to become an EITI complaint – member in the gas and oil sector.

To accelerate the process, eh said government had also set up a 20-member committee of stakeholders in the industry to ensure the timely extension of the principles of EITI to the oil and gas sector, stressing that movement’s plan to submit itself to the EITI standard in oil and gas sector was an indication that revenue from the industry would be used judiciously and for the good of the people.

Source: Ghanaian Times