Associate Executive Director of WACAM, Mrs Hannah Owusu-Koranteng
Residents of some communities in the Bono East region have expressed concern about the poor nature of engagements by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and its agents in undertaking exploration activities in the area.
They are therefore calling on the authorities to reconsider the “autocratic” style being adopted by the state institution in an attempt to exploit the oil deposits in the area.
This came to light during the launch of a study on “Onshore Petroleum Exploration in Ghana: The rights of communities” at Nkoranza in the Bono East region.
The study, commissioned by WACAM Ghana, a civil society organization, with funding by the Ford Foundation, was undertaken by Dr Emmanuel Yamoah Tenkorang, of the University of Cape Coast, and Dr Yaw Asamoah, of the University of Education, Winneba.
The sampling areas of the study, which fall within the large and resource-rich Voltaian basin, were Nkoranza South municipality, Nkoranza North and Atebubu-Amantin districts.
Maximum benefits
The residents are asking government and all stakeholders to take a second look at the way exploration activities are carried out by players in the extractive sector. This is to ensure that the local people and the nation at large derive maximum benefits at the end of the day.
“When we were introduced to a group of persons, purported to be staff of the GNPC, who have been dispatched to the Kintampo area to undertake oil exploration activities, they only told us about the benefits we stand to gain from their activities, but never said anything about the dangers and problems associated with what they were coming here to do,” Nana Owusu Pinkrah, Krontihene of Kintampo, told the Daily Statesman.
“When we asked them probing questions, they said they were only an advanced team and that there would be another team which will later come over to engage with us. But in a few days afterwards, they unilaterally destroyed people’s lands and farms and undertook some oil exploration activities without any serious discussions and prior approval by the local people,” he added.
Other community members at the programme observed that oil exploration in the third world countries has not been of benefit to the people.
Inequitable arrangement
Associate Executive Director of WACAM, Mrs Hannah Owusu-Koranteng, observed that it had become a common spectacle to see communities located in areas rich in natural resources being made poorer through the exploration of their natural wealth.
“It is a zero-sum game where the poor countries become poorer for the rich countries to be richer. At the bottom of this unfair and inequitable economic arrangement lies the communities who through no fault of theirs are located on the natural wealth,” she said.
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