Ghana to export talent in Oil and Gas industry to three African countries

Ghana has signed an MOU with some other African countries to help them develop their oil sectors.
These countries are Sierra Leone, Gambia and Liberia.
The government is also preparing to sign another MoU with Guyana for the same purpose.

The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, (GNPC) and its counterparts in three West African countries have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to export some of its talents in the Petroleum industry the countries.

The three countries are Sierra Leone, Gambia and Liberia.

According to the Chief Executive of the GNPC, Dr. Kofi Kodua Sarpong, by the signing of the MOU, Ghana will purposely share experiences in the management of the petroleum upstream sector.

He told Accra-based Citi FM that GNPC is also preparing to sign another MoU with Guyana for the same purpose.

“We believe that we need to share experience from other countries as a way of improving what we do. MoU’s are necessary. Our organization has been there for nearly four decades and we have the expertise, we can export talents so we are looking at all these opportunities and in fact, I can say that our brothers and sisters in other countries are knocking on our doors for advice and that is precisely what we trying to do.”

Meanwhile, the GNPC has also sent a strong indication that it will increase surveillance to ensure that petroleum companies within the Upstream Oil Sector comply with the Local Content regulations. This, the Corporation believes will increase Ghanaian participation in the Petroleum Industry.

In recent times, indigenous companies have complained that they are unable to participate fully in the Petroleum Upstream Sector because of the lack of funds and capacity.

Dr. Kofi Kodua Sarpong said the GNPC will monitor the activities of companies operating in the industry effectively to ensure they reserve the quota for Local companies for indigenous firms.

“Certain activities are expected to be undertaken by Ghanaians and that must be so. Oil companies have got all manner of schemes so they don’t comply with that.”

He, however, cautioned that the monitoring must be done with tact since Ghana does not have certain expertise and relies on the oil companies especially the foreign ones for training.