The Ghana Stabilisation Fund: Relevance and Impact so far

Abstract

Ghana in response to global best practices in managing volatile petroleum revenues included in its petroleum revenue management framework, the Ghana Stabilisation Fund (GSF). This study sought to evaluate the impact of volatile petroleum receipts on the GSF and measure the effect of discretionary capping on the ‘stabilisation’ role of the Fund since its establishment in 2011. Using qualitative comparative analysis and sensitivity analysis techniques, the study found that transfers into the GSF has been influenced to various degrees by total petroleum receipts, the variance between benchmark and actual revenues, transfers to the National Oil Company and discretion around transfers into the Fund in its initial years of operation. Out of the total of US$ 714,608,340 withdrawn from the GSF between 2014 and 2018, 86.72 percent has been transferred into the Debt Service Account/Sinking Fund (DSA/SF) and used to retire some marketable debt instruments (loans). It concludes that the GSF has impacted minimally on its primary object of cushioning or sustaining public expenditure capacity during periods of unanticipated petroleum revenue shortfalls and that, the Fund has been largely applied for debt repayment purposes than economic stabilisation over the past eight years.