Oxfam: Ghana's New Oil Law Leaves Room for Financial Mistake

xfam says Ghana's new oil law will not protect it from making the same financial mistakes as established oil producers such as Angola and Nigeria.

 

The Petrol Revenue Management Bill that Ghana's parliament ratified¹ on March 2 is to regulate how the country spends and saves the $1 billion in oil money it expects to reap this year alone, an amount that is equal to two-thirds of the government's total anti-poverty spending.

The new law will require Ghana's government to publish a breakdown² of all the oil-related money it receives and where it goes. It establishes watchdog groups to keep an eye on the oil money.

But policy group Oxfam International says those rules alone are not enough to prevent this region's newest oil exporter from repeating the mistakes of its oldest oil giants.

Nigeria, Angola, Cameroon, Equatorial-Guinea, Republic of Congo, and Gabon - all west and central African states - have been pumping hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil a day for decades. But that oil windfall has typically failed to bring even mundane³ improvements in the lives of people in those states, the majority of whom live on less than $1.25 a day.

Ghana could suffer a similar future, Oxfam Policy Manager Ian Gary says, if the country does what its neighbors did and uses oil revenue as collateral⁴ for government loans.

Unfortunately, he said, the final law stripped a provision that would have prevented Ghana from doing just that - taking on risky⁵ debt with the false sense of security that petrol profits will one day pick up the tab.

"In many cases such as Angola, Congo-Brazzaville, and others, the condition under which they took oil-backed loans were very opaque," said Gary. "The terms were not known to the public and the interest rates were really high. So without any public discussion, the officials were basically mortgaging the future at very bad terms."

Ghana, he said, may be already inching towards that fate.

The state has taken out a staggering $750 million loan in the form the eurobond in 2008. Ghana's state-owned National Petroleum⁶ Company is also looking to borrow $500 million in start-up cash - a loan Gary fears, will be backed with the promise that some future oil windfall will pay off the loan if the company can't.

"There's concern that before Ghana even starts to really produce significant quantities of oil that it will have mortgaged a lot of that money," added Gary.

There are other, more intransigent concerns, too, he says for this country that may be an example against corruption⁷ within its region, but is still ranked 62nd in Transparency International's rankings of how 178 countries fare against corruption.

A series of 2009 investigations⁸ on how the country's nascent⁹ petrol proceeds were being spent found "leakage," Gary said, between the oil wells and the schools and clinics they were meant to fund.

"It's a question of how quickly Ghana can build its capacity to not just spend money, but spend money wisely," explained Gary.

In his state of the nation speech this year, Ghana's President John Atta Mills said his government will account for 100 percent of the country's petrol proceeds.

1 ratified   

v.批准，签认（合约等）( ratify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The treaty was declared invalid because it had not been ratified. 条约没有得到批准，因此被宣布无效。
• The treaty was ratified by all the member states. 这个条约得到了所有成员国的批准。

2 breakdown   

n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌

参考例句：

• She suffered a nervous breakdown.她患神经衰弱。
• The plane had a breakdown in the air,but it was fortunately removed by the ace pilot.飞机在空中发生了故障，但幸运的是被王牌驾驶员排除了。

3 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

4 collateral   

adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品

参考例句：

• Many people use personal assets as collateral for small business loans.很多人把个人财产用作小额商业贷款的抵押品。
• Most people here cannot borrow from banks because they lack collateral.由于拿不出东西作为抵押，这里大部分人无法从银行贷款。

5 risky   

adj.有风险的，冒险的

参考例句：

• It may be risky but we will chance it anyhow.这可能有危险，但我们无论如何要冒一冒险。
• He is well aware how risky this investment is.他心里对这项投资的风险十分清楚。

6 petroleum   

n.原油，石油

参考例句：

• The Government of Iran advanced the price of petroleum last week.上星期伊朗政府提高了石油价格。
• The purpose of oil refinery is to refine crude petroleum.炼油厂的主要工作是提炼原油。

7 corruption   

n.腐败，堕落，贪污

参考例句：

• The people asked the government to hit out against corruption and theft.人民要求政府严惩贪污盗窃。
• The old man reviled against corruption.那老人痛斥了贪污舞弊。

8 investigations   

（正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究

参考例句：

• His investigations were intensive and thorough but revealed nothing. 他进行了深入彻底的调查，但没有发现什么。
• He often sent them out to make investigations. 他常常派他们出去作调查。

9 nascent   

adj.初生的，发生中的

参考例句：

• That slim book showed the Chinese intelligentsia and the nascent working class.那本小册子讲述了中国的知识界和新兴的工人阶级。
• Despite a nascent democracy movement,there's little traction for direct suffrage.尽管有过一次新生的民主运动，但几乎不会带来直接选举。