Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has pledged the government’s commitment to emulate the best examples of oil-producing nations to appropriately manage its oil and gas find to improve the lives of Ghanaians.
He said although Ghana was a developing nation, the lessons learnt from oil-producing countries such as Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Libya, among others, would guide it to strive to make the resource a blessing and not a curse.
The Vice-President made the promise when the Crown Prince and Princess of Norway and the Norwegian Minister of Environment and Development called on him at the Flagstaff House ahead of the launch of the Ghana-Norway Agreement on Oil for Development.
In October 2007, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) applied for assistance from Norway under its Oil for Development (OfD) programme.
The application was followed up with a call from the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr Kofi Annan, for Norway to grant Ghana’s request.
Based on the subsequent dialogue and thorough assessment of the scope for co-operation, a decision was made to make Ghana a core co-operation country in the OfD programme.
In February 2008, during the National Forum on Oil and Gas Development in Accra, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between Ghana’s Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Norway regarding long-term co-operation within the petroleum sector under the OfD.
In December 2010, the governments of Norway and Ghana signed an agreement following a request by Ghana for support to strengthen the resource management of oil and gas in Ghana.
