Four political parties launch policy positions on oil & gas

The Norwegian Ambassador to Ghana, Hege Hertzberg, has pledged the support of the Norwegian government to the management of Ghana’s oil and gas resources as well its democracy and electoral processes.
 
Ms. Hertzberg made the pledge at the launch in Accra, last Friday, of the policy positions of four political parties—the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Convention Peoples Party (CPP) New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the Peoples National Convention (PNC)—on oil and gas.
 
She noted that there were close links between politics and the management of extractives such as oil and gas, adding that oil and gas resources belonged to the people and not to political parties and the governments they put in place, hence the need to support all processes and efforts to ensure that natural resources governance responded to the citizens’ demand while benefitting the country as a whole, rather than a few individuals.
 
The electorate, she said, therefore, needed to be part of policy formulation and decision-making on the governance and management of natural resources.
 
In his remarks, Mr. Emmanuel Kuyole, Deputy Director for Africa, Natural Resources Governance Institute (NRGI), underscored the importance of political parties as key pillars of policy making and decisions on natural resources.
 
Mr Kuyole expressed the hope that the policy decisions of the political parties would find their way into their manifestoes.
 
With support from NRGI and the International Institute for Democratic and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), the four parliamentary political parties have been involved in a rigorous process of developing/reviewing their respective oppositions on the governance of the oil and gas sector.
 
The objective of the launch of the policy positions on oil and gas was, therefore, to provide the political parties the opportunity to communicate their new policy positions on the management of oil and gas to key stakeholders and the wider public.
 
The policy positions included the adoption of merit-based rather than partisan approach on the appointment of membership of boards, the need for legislation on contractual disclosure, including the full disclosure of beneficial owners, the role of National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) in sensitizing the public on oil and gas legislations, and the role of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) in the oil and gas industry.
 
Source: ISD