The Ministry of Energy has been cited in several underhand dealings with regards to the sale of oil blocks in the country.
Ghana’s rich oil fields located in and around the Cape three point of the Western Region has become an attraction to several investors, but the Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) is worried about the manner in which licenses for oil blocks are being issued.
The concern comes against the backdrop of brouhaha over the alleged forging of the Energy Minister, Kofi Armah Buah’s signature involving Miura Petroleum and its Canadian partner Gondwana Oil over the South Block Offshore West Cape three points.
ACEP believes the Energy Ministry is not being truthful with the full facts of the case and is therefore calling for full scale investigations.
Speaking to Live News, the Programmes Manager at ACEP, Bernard Boakye alleged that some officials of the Energy Ministry were involved in the sale of juicy oil blocks to cronies.
“We have information that a deputy minister of Energy is involved. We have information that a Director at the ministry is involved, and that’s the reason Miura Petroleum did not get the block they were interested in. We are not particularly interested in who gets the block but we want to see greater openness in the system so that nobody is disadvantaged”, he said adding that the “emphasis is that they did not complete the process because at a certain point, people with mighty hands were also interested in the same block.”
Mr. Boakye who stopped short of calling out names, also called for a freeze on the sale of blocks in the country until the coming into force of a proper legal framework to regulate acquisition deals.
