The World Bank and government of Norway are funding an Accelerated Oil and Gas Capacity [AOGC] Program spearheaded by the West African country’s Ministry of Energy, aimed at equipping Ghanaians with the skills and competences required by the oil and gas sector.
The Accra Times reports that the President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo, launched the initiative on Tuesday. He promised that his Government will put in place all necessary mechanisms to ensure the success of the program and to also ensure that Ghanaians find themselves at the forefront of the oil and gas industry. ‘’ We are determined to expand opportunities in the industry, and to use it as a catalyst for rapid transformation of our country,’’ he said.
He explained that the AOGC Program will guarantee that local service providers and personnel are given the requisite skills and technical know-how, from entrepreneurship to engineering, to strengthen their effective participation in the sector and other related industries.
To that end, he further revealed that the Ministry of Energy had already laid out a plan under the program to train one thousand Ghanaians annually to gain various technical skills and that two hundred Small Scale Enterprises [SMEs]will also be provided with the capacity to gain a competitive advantage in the industry. Some three hundred employees in the public sectors are also adequately prepared to support the development of oil and gas policies as well as the enforcement of industry regulations.
With the view to achieving the objective of accelerating exploration, government also plans to partner local and international oil and gas exploration companies to take up more acreage in Ghana’s offshore basins whilst the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation [GNPC] has also embarked on aggressive onshore seismic campaigns for future development on the Voltain Basin.
He therefore urged the Energy Ministry to expedite work on the development of the General Petroleum Regulations to ensure the applications of open and competitive public tender processes provided in Section 10 of the Petroleum Act, 919, for the award of petroleum rights.
Like Guyana, the first major oil discovery was made in the West African country of Ghana in the same year the country celebrated its 50th Independence Anniversary back in 2007.
