Since Ghana began commercial oil production in 2011, the nation has accrued over $2.7 billion in petroleum revenues. However, despite this substantial inflow of funds, Ghana has yet to witness significant infrastructural transformation or sustained economic development attributable to its oil wealth.
In a recent X Space discussion hosted by the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), civil society representative Richard Ellimah voiced serious concerns about how the country has managed its oil revenues. Ellimah criticized the government’s approach to spending the funds, describing it as scattered and lacking strategic focus. Rather than concentrating resources on targeted priority sectors, the government diluted the impact by spreading funds too thinly across a broad array of areas.
Ellimah elaborated on the shortcomings of implementation under the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA), which designates 13 priority areas for the allocation of oil revenues. According to him, successive governments have failed to adhere to these priorities effectively:
“When you look at the revenue management act and you look at the 13 clauses there that indicate what the oil revenue should be used for, we haven’t been able to stick to the priority areas that we choose and we’ve invested nearly all in the 13 areas and so we stretched the money so thin that the money really hasn’t been able to give us what we intended the money to do and that is a challenge that we need to look at.”
He further lamented how petroleum revenues have been treated like “petty cash,” merely plugging small budgetary gaps instead of funding transformative projects capable of driving sustainable development.
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Ellimah stressed the urgent need for deliberate, strategic investments that diversify Ghana’s economy and build critical infrastructure. He highlighted the risks of continued dependency on oil revenues without meaningful economic diversification:
“Investing the revenues, diversifying our economy, or we are still dependent on oil. We are still dependent on… This dependency is not sustainable. So once we get the revenues, we need to decide to invest in economic infrastructure, we can decide to invest in tourism.”
The PRMA also restricts expenditure to four priority sectors at a time, but Ellimah noted how shifting government priorities have diluted the impact of these funds:
“Petroleum utilization is guided by the law and how it is guided by what the PRMV sees. So at any point in time the revenues are spent on any of these or all of these four priority areas that the government of the day decides to select.”
Echoing these concerns, energy expert Kwame Jantuah drew a sharp contrast between Ghana’s oil sector management and that of Norway, which benefits from a comprehensive 40-year development plan:
“Norway had a 40-year development plan. We had nothing.”
Jantuah pointed to the challenges Ghana faced in fast-tracking oil exploration to production within just three years — a process that typically takes a decade. This compressed timeline left little room for building local capacity or establishing robust regulatory frameworks:
“We did exploration to production in three years. It was a challenge for us because most times, these things take 10 years from exploration to production. And within that 10 years you put everything you need together, your local companies, service companies… We started three years of that 10 years and we faced problems.”
He further criticized how the oil revenues were largely consumed rather than invested in growth:
“The revenue has come in but the revenue instead of going into investment is gone into consumption.”
While acknowledging progress in the gas sector, which now fuels electricity generation and supports the power grid, Jantuah emphasized that the core oil revenues have yet to be strategically deployed:
“One area that probably we have gained massively is gas because today our gas is used for only producing electricity which has helped the power sector. But in terms of the oil side of things, the revenue has come in but the revenue instead of going into investment is gone into consumption.”
As Ghana embarks on new offshore oil exploration amid global energy transitions and increasing demand for clean energy, both Ellimah warned that without stronger planning, greater transparency, and disciplined use of petroleum revenues, the country risks repeating past mistakes.
