Framework for petroleum revenue management in Ghana: current problems and challenges

Abstract

Ghana enacted the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA) (Act 815), with the objective of, inter alia, monitoring the use of petroleum revenue. Whereas the PRMA has helped stem the wastage and misappropriation of petroleum revenue, there have been grave challenges in respect of the collection of money as well as the utilisation thereof in each of the areas that it is to be disbursed to, primarily, the national oil company, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), the budget, the Heritage fund and the Stabilisation Fund. It is the case that the collection of the revenue has been relatively lax while, in respect of the utilisation of the disbursements, political interference in the affairs of GNPC has led to an unsatisfactory utilisation of its disbursements, moneys allocated from the budget for projects have sometimes been misappropriated or spread too thin minimising their impact, yield on the Heritage Fund has been low, and the Stabilisation Fund insufficiently robust. Despite these challenges, the situation is much better than it would have been in the absence of the PRMA. Ghana needs to make a much more judicious use of the revenue as the utilisation thus far falls far short of having a transformative impact on the lives of the citizenry.