There have been a number of reports of the discovery of a significant oil field off the coast of Ghana. Everyone I know is jubilating about it. Let us pray that Ghana does not fall victim to the oil curse. Poverty has increased in those countries that have oil, and agriculture that lets a country feed itself, has died.
Rawlings made some particularly brilliant moves when he governed Ghana, setting up the government in a way that tied a contemporary, and generally democratic government to traditional local and regional ways of governing. Ghana has the tools to make government work. Ghana also has problems with corruption that have gotten worse under Kufuor, who owes his position to some very corrupt people. Kufuor will be gone about the same time as Bush. He has used the Presidency as a paid travel vacation around the world. He is rarely and briefly in Ghana. Let us hope Ghanaians chose the next President wisely. Oil encourages corruption, and there are many dangers.
If Ghana is able to invest a significant portion of oil earnings in education, Ghana could become a regional strength and beacon. Ghana needs to restore compulsory free elementary education, as was the case after independence and before the coups. Ghana needs universal and compulsory secondary education, and it needs advanced learning, colleges and universities. The need and demand is there, but the supply has been neglected. Universities create economic success. For those parts of the United States that have invested heavily in universities, it has paid of in economic booms and sustained economic success. Businesses want to set up shop where they can find a trained and talented pool of workers. Education brings business, education develops business, and business brings money.
Ghana also needs to think long term. What happens when the oil runs out. Ghana needs to develop economic and energy resources independent of oil. And Ghana needs to protect her environment. No country yet has done very well in planning for the end of oil. I recently watched a tv program, Equator, in which Simon Reeves travels around the equator. In his travels through Gabon he said that with oil supplies depleted, and local agriculture barely in existence, President Bongo had declared a number of large forest areas as protected reserves, and is encouraging tourism as a source of income to replace oil. The program showed people in a rural village dancing for tourists, as that was their only means of making a living. They had little agriculture, and were forbidden to hunt in the reserves where they used to hunt. It made for a very peculiar situation. To my eye, there was little joy in the dance, and I really wondered what the tourists felt, and what they were thinking. I would not enjoy seeing this sort of thing again.
Some of the oil strike stories from:
The Statesman
The Daily Graphic
The Accra Daily Mail
Joy Online
BBC News
Also from BBC News:
Mr Kufuor said the discovery would give a major boost to Ghana’s economy.
We’re going to really zoom, accelerate… and you’ll see that Ghana truly is the African tiger 
“Oil is money, and we need money to do the schools, the roads, the hospitals. If you find oil, you manage it well, can you complain about that?” he told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme.
I am praying fervently that he is right.
June 19, 2007 at 11:55 pm
decent resource here too
rigzone: Anadarko, Partners Hit Oil Pay Offshore Ghana
hope for the best, prepare for the worst
one advantage is that this find is offshore, meaning that the environmental damage will be limited.
but then it could also mean that there’s less of an economic impact than some might be expecting. from the figures in the link above, it looks like ghana only has a marginal share (i could be wrong since i haven’t looked into the agreements) and one thing that the westerners are so crazy about african oil for is the fact that the new, big deposits aren’t located onshore, meaning they are easier to keep isolated from domestic interference. the plan is that this sweet crude just needs to be pumped into tankers & it’s already right there in a shipping lane headed off to a foreign refinery. minimal need for infrastucture & local services. little need for hiring any local workers. small imported crews staying offshore for the most part. etc.
there will be a lot of crazy talk as the (black) gold fever bug spreads. ideally, there are enough examples of other nation’s experiences w/ this to provide intelligent analysis for proceeding. whether logic & lessons learned can prevail in such a climate is unpredictable though.
w/ so many different actors automatically assuming entitlement to this oil, it becomes more than just an oil issue.
nationalization would be an ideal move, if possible, as would joining OPEC or forming a continental or regional oil coalition w/ other oil producers. (strength in numbers)
gotta real life case study shaping up
just some quick thoughts…
June 20, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I was a bit surprised at what looked like a rather minimal share for Ghana. It made me think of the Cheney version of the Iraqi hydrocarbon law. And I’ve been noticing the delight that the Gulf of Guinea oil is mostly offshore. I think the scenario you describe of it being pumped into tankers and on its way to other parts of the world is exactly what the West and China have in mind, no nasty dealing with the citizenry of the country. I am glad, that barring spills, the environmental impact could be minimal.
I think strenth in numbers probably has to be the way to go. I just don’t know if it will work. I like the idea of nationalizing the oil. But I worry about scenarios such as the one the Spy Who Billed Me imagines for Venezuela. The US played a significant role in the overthrow of Nkrumah, which I hope to have time to write about soon. There was also a weird little plot to overthrow Rawlings under Reagan. And I would not like to see the US, or any other entity, trying to destabilize the Ghana government again.