New strategy to build capacity in oil sector
Government is to develop a human resource development strategy for the petroleum sector as part of its long term national development strategy.
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The strategy, which is at the initial stages, seeks to ensure that capacity in the oil sector, especially with respect to the provision of services, is fully developed to meet current and future needs.
The aim ultimately, however, is to develop the oil and gas services sector fully to be sustainable even after petroleum resources diminish in the long term.
The Director General of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Dr Nii Moi Thompson, who was speaking on the role of the petroleum sector in national development in an interview on March 1 said the new human resource strategy would be in line with how the economy was expected to grow.
“There is a human resource development strategy that is going to come with the long term national development plan and that will follow the contours of how we want the economy to grow,” he said.
He added, “so if we are saying that the petroleum sector, for example, should be very dynamic in every way meeting both our current and future needs, and for our service exports, then these are the things going to be done.”
The NDPC, he said, would collaborate with institutions that provide training on oil and gas services to ensure that individuals and companies providing services in the sector received adequate training to help develop a solid human resource base.
“We will engage the various institutions for training and we will work with them to help in developing our human resource plan as part of the main thing,” he said.
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Developing oil and gas services
As part of efforts to deepen local participation in the oil and gas sector, the Local Content and Local Participation Regulation (L.I. 2204) was introduced, but a major challenge to the initiative has been the limited capacity of the local companies to deliver the required services.
The Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) in the Western Region, a government initiative was subsequently launched to provide support for Ghanaian businesses in the oil sector to position them to take advantage of opportunities in the sector.
Despite this intervention, the ability of indigenous companies to match up to the requirements of the industry has necessitated the incorporation of the human resource development strategy into the long term focus of the nation.
Dr Thompson said the services sector in the petroleum industry would be developed in addition to the technical bit, so that in the absence of the petroleum resources, the country could still rely on the services sector not only for internal use but also for exports.
“This means we will get high value services, aside the technical people including the engineers and so forth who will be working in the oil and gas sector. That whole sector should be developed well enough such that it can also export some of those services in addition to some of the merchandise services, and this can go way into the future,” he said.
40-Year devt plan
Government in 2015 launched its 40-year National Development Plan which seeks to provide the strategic direction of Ghana’s long-term development.
The plan, which will span from 2018 to 2057, will entail 10 four-year medium-term plans by successive governments that will end in 2057, as well as national elections beginning with the election in 2020 and ending with the election of 2056.
The 40-year plan will replace five medium-term plans which the country had been implementing since the Fourth Republic, which would end in 2017.