Petroleum fund
Another issue Mr Agyeman cited was the administration of the Ghana Petroleum Fund (GPF), which is made up of the Ghana Heritage Fund (GHF) and the Ghana Stabilisation Fund (GSF).
He noted that the instruments in which the GHF was invested were low risk resulting in low returns, therefore, there was the need to diversify the investment portfolios so that the returns at the end of the day would be quite appreciable.
On the other hand, he explained that although the essence of the GSF is to provide economic buffer in times of unanticipated shocks to the national economy, about 90 per cent of withdrawals from the fund over the 10-year period of oil production has gone into debt repayment.
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The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) has said that 10 years is ripe for the country to do an introspection of how it has managed revenues from its oil resource.
Although PIAC has over the years raised critical issues relating to the management and use of petroleum revenues, it said was time to highlight all the issues in a single document to ensure that they were given urgent attention and commitment for redress.
Subsequently, an issue paper released by the committee catalogues a number of issues that need urgent attention in the petroleum revenue management space.
In an interview on May 6, 2021, the Technical Manager of PIAC, Mr Mark Agyeman, explained the paper sought to draw the attention of the appropriate authorities to deal with the issues.