Oil find in Ghana requires infrastructure development – Tetteh
The oil find in the Western and Central Regions of Ghana would require significant infrastructural development, more especially the construction of a deep water habour to facilitate the movement of large ocean vessels.
The Minister of Trade and Industry Ms. Hannah Tetteh said these when she received Mr. Darren Schemmer, the Canadian Ambassador in her office.
The Ambassador was in the company of Madam Patricia Filteau, the Commissioner of Canadian Trade services to brief the Minister on the visit of the Canadian Minister of International Trade, Stockwell Day to sub-Saharan Africa.
Ms. Tetteh also stressed the need to encourage investments to build the country’s service sectors such as IT, finance and education to provide the required skills for the industrial sector.
The Minister added that the agricultural and agro processing sectors also needed to be strengthened.
Mr. Schemmer told the Minister that Stockwell Day was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in 2000 and was re-elected in 2004, 2006 and 2008 respectively..
The visit, he said shall take place between March 13 to 21 2010.
While in the country, Stockwell Day will meet with President, John Evans Atta Mills, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms. Hanna Tetteh, Minister of Energy, Dr. Oteng Agyei and the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Mr. Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur.
Source: Ministry of Trade and Industry
Hello Madam Minister. Your statement on the infrastructural development in Ghana for the oil production is well read but allow me to add this piece of advice. We have observed that democracy has now seen a new birth and good light in Ghana. What I mean is that when a country is stable politically investors are keen to invest their money knowing definitely that they will get good returns on their investments. The numerous coupe d’etats in Ghana since 1966 has actually sent us backward 20 years which made the efforts of Dr. Nkrumah partially in vain. There are many countries who don’t produce oil yet they have embarked on industrialization and achieve infrastructural development. For example South Africa. Oil production in Africa turns to bring curse than blessing when not properly managed. I will advise that we need to develop the country’s human resources from oil revenue. We must give first priority to the indigenous people of the land from which the black gold is extracted. The government need to develop our human resources and alleviate the suffering of the common man. If you look at the streets of Accra you will see kids 16 years and below hawking at a time that they are suppose to be in the classroom. Construction infrastructure alone will not make us achieve any sucess. If you don’t develop the people first whatever you build will be mismanaged by people who hold positions of trust because they are half-baked and have no sense of collective ownership but rather think of their stomachs alone. Make education free like what Mugabe has done for the Zimbabweans. Another aspect is take care of our senior citizens. For example any citizen above the age of 60 should be given some sort of monthly pension to take care of themselves. Many of them have cocoa farms and other things yet you can see that most of them live on the edge hence our lifespan has reduced to between 50 and 55. Madam, let us copy from South Korea and China who after the World War II spent more on the education of the people and now we can all see the results of their investment. Because of the oil so many countries will pretend to be friends of Ghana in order to connect their energy pipes into ours to boost their economies while we will still be borrowing and using the oil revenue to pay interest on loans. Madam, I cannot say more than the above due to the limited space here but I hope to send you copy of my thesis after my Ph.D course which I am researching on the Impact of Petroleum on the Infrastructural Development in Ghana. Keep your head up for not everything that glitters turn to be gold. Thank you.