Let's pressure Parliament to pass E&P Bill -ACEP

The Deputy Executive Director of Africa Centre for Energy Policy(ACEP) Benjamin Boakye has urged Ghanaians to mount pressure on parliament for them to pass the Exploration and Production (E&P) Bill into law before the end of this year.

"We have to keep pushing parliament to make sure that they pass the Exploration and Production Bill into law so that it doesn't delay any further," he said.

Mr Benjamin Boakye fears the Bill will suffer another undue delay in an unlikely events that parliament fails to pass it before the close of this year.

In his view, the Bill would have to be relayed again before Parliament in 2017 for deliberations on it because of the ushering of the new Parliament.

"If we don't pass this Bill this year it means that we have to start the whole process again. This is because the tenure of this parliament would have expired and the new parliament will necessarily have to start the process afresh.That's my fear," he stressed.

Speaking at the media launch of the 2016 Africa Oil and Gas report ,Mr Boakye raised serious concerns that the country could be shortchanged because of the absence of a law regulating the oil exploration and production in the country.

He blamed government for being lackadaisical in ensuring that the Bill is passed.

"Since we discovered oil in 2007 and now we have built 2 FPSO's and another one is also coming next year. One FPSO is about 8 football field.We have been able to put that together as soon as possible but just 90 page documents we have not been able to passed it. It tells you that there is high interest at play."

According to Mr Boakye, the Bill if is passed will ensure greater transparency in the country's oil sector.

He noted the Bill will provide a significant shift from the old regime where for instance the Minister of Finance places moratorium on the award of oil contracts and lift it later to favour cronies without consulting other stakeholders.

He said he was not surprised that the country is not deriving dividends from about 8 contracts which were signed in 2014 because of lack of capacity of the companies to execute the contracts.

Mr. Boakye underscored the need for government to ensure that the oil contracts goes through competitive bidding process in order to select the company with track records.

Story by: Michael Creg Afful

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