Former Power minister Kwabena Donkor has described as dangerous the request by the Finance minister for Parliament to grant approval for government to exclude gas revenues amounting to US$181.80 million from projected revenues for 2019.
“Mr. Speaker, the Ministry is proposing to this august House to allow it to exclude gas revenues to the tune of US$181.80 million from the projected petroleum revenues for 2019, as we devise ways of getting VRA to pay for the gas supplied it by Ghana Gas.
“Furthermore, as a measure to minimise the amount of gas produced in the SGN Field for power production, Government has decided to postpone the extraction of its share of the gas resource (Royalties, and Carried and Participating Interest (CAPI), until such a time that we line up off takers to consume the gas in-year. These are prudential measures and should not be misconstrued to mean that the Ministry will not be pursuing the VRA’s gas bills, as required by the PRMA,” the Finance minister Ken Ofori Atta told Parliament during his budget presentation Friday.
Reacting to the request, Mr. Donkor called on government to be cautious with the handling of the oil revenue.
“This is a dangerous path and we shouldn’t take this path at all. We need to be extra careful with petroleum revenue in this country. Government is keeping some information from the public. Gov’t should not try to camouflage things to look good. The Finance Minister should be bold enough to tell us that the ENI Gas infrastructure is not ready. Sometimes, we need to be plain,” he told Francis Abban on the Morning Starr in post budget analysis Friday.
Also, the former Vice Chairman of the Public interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) Kwame Jantuah has called on Parliament to reject the request by the Finance minister.
“How and why will government want to get VRA to pay for gas supplied it by Ghana Gas. We can get Royalties out of our own natural resource. Why are we postponing it. Why are we postponing our shares when we have gas which can help us run the economy? Oil makes people lazy”.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
