By Dominic Hlordzi
The Africa Program Officer of the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), Mr. Denis Gyeyir is advocating what he termed partial privatisation of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), to help curtail some excesses in its operations and ensure that it focuses on its core mandate.
Speaking with GBC’s Energy News in Cape Coast, Mr. Gyeyir said the issue of lack of transparency and government’s unnecessary interference in the affairs will be addressed when the Corporation has private shareholders.
He stated that privatizing the national oil company is not about asking for it to be given out to a private entity entirely.
“The point is that we have seen evidence around the World, with the changing petroleum sector issues and energy transition. Many of the nationally owned companies are beginning to inject some private ownership into their operations to ensure efficiency,” Mr. Gyeyir explained.
He said the issue of partial privatisation is important for a number of reasons.
“First of all, the companies are compelled to be transparent and accountable to their shareholders. This means that they will be producing financial reports and transparency will be much enhanced. Secondly, the issue of government’s interference which has been the bane of GNPC’s sustainable investment is critical to look at.”
Mr. Gyeyir pointed out that reviewing the GNPC Act and ensuring that there is some injection of some private ownership will ensure that the government does not have total control and doesn’t dictate to the Corporation in terms of what it should do.
“We have seen too much of GNPC guaranteeing loans and agreements for other state-owned enterprises and allowing money to go into state coffers or the government virtually dipping its hands into GNPC’s coffers and using its resources for government’s projects. That is unacceptable and not sustainable for the Corporation,” The Africa Program Officer of NRGI, Mr. Gyeyir stated.
