The amount is a concessional loan to be repaid over a period of 35 years including a 10-year grace period and constitutes two-thirds of the total project cost.
The World Bank says the project has two phases: the first it says is to help improve public management and regulatory capacity and enhance sector transparency. These would be achieved by strengthening the institutions managing and monitoring the sector, the Banks said in a press release issued in Washington and copied to ghanabusinessnews.com.
The second phase, it says will support the development of indigenous technical and professional skills needed by the petroleum sector through support to selected educational institutions.
Commenting on the facility, the World Bank Task Team Leader for the Project, Sunil Mathrani says, “The Oil and Gas Capacity Building Project has been prepared in response to these challenges and to support government’s desire to rapidly fix them. The Ministry of Energy, the Ghana National Petroleum Company and the Environmental Protection Agency are among the key state institutions targeted for support.”
Specifically the Project will provide institutional support to the Ministry of Energy and the soon-to-be-established petroleum regulatory body to enable them play their oversight, coordination, policy planning and implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation roles effectively, the Bank says.
Under the Project, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation’s petroleum data repository will be upgraded.
The Environmental Protection Agency will be supported to enhance its ability to manage and monitor environmental issues in the oil and gas sector. Other beneficiaries are the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, particularly its agencies such as the Ghana Revenue Authority and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Secretariat; the Attorney General’s Department and the Economic & Organized Crime Office, it said.
According to the Bank, another component of the Project targeting human capital development will provide support to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology to improve petroleum engineering and petrochemical engineering teaching and research capabilities. Additionally it will provide support to vocational training institutions for development of programs focused on technical skills development for the oil and gas industry via support to the Takoradi Technical Institute, Kikam Technical Institute and the Regional Maritime University.
The Project will also support Civil Society Organisations. The Bank recognises that given the strategic role civil society is expected to play in promoting accountability and community participation, an additional grant of $2 million is being provided under the Bank’s Governance Partnership Facility (GPF) to support a wide range of activities to be championed and implemented by civil society and community based organizations.
“This Project seeks to support the determination of the people of Ghana to make oil a blessing and not a curse. We hope that the support to educational institutions will contribute to Ghana’s intention to develop local content and employment in the sector as quickly as possible”, said World Bank Country Director, Ishac Diwan.
“We see a big role for CSOs,” he added, “and it is part of the plan to support capacity building at that level, to enable them play their part actively as agents of social accountability. We have been assisting the CSO platform on Oil and Gas, and we are happy they are already serving as great partners to government.”
Other co-financiers are the governments of Ghana and Norway. The Project is planned to take off in 2011 and end in 2015, the Bank said.
Source: ghanabusinessnews.com
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