The government has been advised to rethink its incentive regime to attract more oil investors in the country as the clarion call for a transition to renewable energies gains grounds.
Technical Manager at the Public Interest and Accountability Committee, Mark Agyemang says all the global oil giants are diversifying their investments shifting from hydrocarbons to renewable energy sources.
He tells The High Street Journal that the transition is affecting the country’s oil industry as many investors have abandoned the country with others not willing to invest more resources due to the transition.
He maintains that the country has significant oil reserves that need to be exploited to drive socio-economic development.
With the shift, Mr. Agyemang says the government must be deliberate about attracting investors in the country’s oil industry with attractive incentives. He suggests that the government must rethink areas such as taxation, regulatory regimes, and the general investment climate to attract these investors.
The energy transition, he says is a reality that the country must face by positioning itself in a manner that the shift to renewable energy does not become a disadvantage to the country.
“The reality here means that we are being faced with this energy transition where companies are diversifying their investment portfolios away from hydrocarbons. What this means is that to be able to attract foreign direct investment, you need to also have a look at the incentives you put in place to get them to come,” the Technical Manager of PIAC explained.
He noted that as a government “You look at your fiscal terms. You look at your taxation system. You look at your investment climate by improving upon some of these things. It is a reality that as a country and a people, we need to face and come to accept that things are moving and that most of them are not dictated by us so we need to face some of these realities.”
The oil and gas expert believes that the shift to renewable energy sources is also playing a role in the current decline in the country’s oil production. The declining production puts the country’s petroleum revenues at risk which can heavily affect the funding of important government programmes and projects.
He, therefore, called for drastic measures to address the situation to curtail putting the entire economy in jeopardy.
