OIL, GAS FORUM HELD IN CAPE COAST

Heads of departments, district chief executives(DCEs) and traditional leaders in the Central Region have taken part in a consultative forum on a draft policy on oil and gas held in Cape Coast on Tuesday.

The forum was to solicit ideas for the draft oil and gas policy from stakeholders in the region.

The Director of Petroleum at the Ministry of Energy, Dr Maxwell Appiagyei Gyamfi, who addressed the forum, disclosed that a number of private firms had shown interest in setting up oil refineries in Saltpond and Prampram in the Central and Greater Accra regions respectively, to process oil.

He said considering the fact that it was very expensive to drill oil, it was important that all efforts were made to ensure the effective exploration, processing and utilisation of the resource.

Dr Gyamfi said it was the mission of the ministry to work to manage the oil resource in a sustainable manner to benefit Ghanaians now and in the future.

He noted that the draft policy would ensure the efficient management of concessions to ensure that the government and Ghanaians maximised profit.

Opening the forum, the Central Regional Minister, Nana Ato Arthur, said the oil find posed a challenge, especially to the tertiary institutions, to put in place relevant programmes to train the required personnel to manage the oil resource efficiently.

He noted that the oil discovery would open the nation to all sorts of people with different background and malicious intentions parading as oil merchants and consultants to foment trouble and urged the security agencies to be more vigilant to help protect the integrity of the state.

At the end of the forum, the participants observed that the draft was not extensive on the security measures to be taken and called for a comprehensive security system that would ensure the co-ordination of all activities of all the security agencies listed in the draft.

They also called for strategic environmental assessment in areas to be explored and measures to mitigate any environmental defects on the environment.

The participants further called for a policy that would deter people from developing industries close to the exploration sites as this was dangerous.

Credit: Daily Graphic