Despite a much-touted local content policy, little has been done to develop the indigenous human capital required to manage the national oil and gas resources, Brigadier Nii Armarh Tagoe of the Ghana Army has observed at the New Year School lectures.

A draft local content bill — submitted and subsequently approved by cabinet and currently awaiting parliamentary scrutiny and passage into law, envisages up to 90 percent local content and participation in the oil and gas sector within the next decade.

Experts, including Trinidadian consultants engaged to help develop a local content policy, have noted that government’s expectations were overly ambitious — pointing out that the global best-case of local content in the hydrocarbons industry is about 75 percent.

Government officials in the oil sector are however adamant that such a high local content expectation will encourage speedy action towards Ghanaian control of the nascent oil sector in the shortest possible time.

A recent contract with Chinese state-owned Sinopec for the development of Ghana’s gas infrastructure — which had the Chinese contributing a minimum of 60 percent of the labour force, with only up to 40 percent coming from Ghana — has sparked debate about government’s commitment to promoting high local content and participation in the industry.

A growing consensus among experts point to a need to match local capacity to the local content policy, thus; highlighting the need to invest in education and development of the human capital required by the sector if Ghanaians are to control the sector anytime soon.

Tagoe said discovery of off-shore oil and gas in commercial quantities in 2007 gave the nation a wake-up call.

“Various private training institutions sprang up from 2008 and beyond. Each of these training institutions advertised various training programmes for specific trades or vocations required in the industry.

The large army of unemployed youth in the country was enticed by these advertisements and accordingly enrolled. Other professionals such as accountants, lawyers and engineers enrolled for specialisation programmes in the oil and gas industry,” Tagoe disclosed.

He explained that as a result of the void created in the formal educational sector for training the human resources for the oil and gas industry since the 1970s, the private educational institutions have seized the initiative from the public educational institutions and by extension the Ministry of Education.

Policies governing standards and accreditation for institutions in the educational sector for the oil and gas industry have thus lagged behind the national requirements.

“The situation is the same when it comes to policy-direction for the development of the requisite human resources for the oil and gas industry,” Tagoe said.

He noted that an overview of the various categories of functional groups required to operate and manage the oil industry — including field-workers, operators, trades, technicians, technologists and geo-science professionals, as well as, engineers, marine and nautical services, and business and operations support — indicated there is a big deficiency in the human capital requirement of the sector.

“The deficit of professional, vocational, technical and business entrepreneurs, will take about two to five years to train, to enable them fill much of the gap.

“The best way to facilitate addressing this shortfall is through Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) programmes,” Tagoe observed.

He pointed out that it is necessary the Ministry of Education to take immediate steps to give policy-direction to such a programme.

“This can be facilitated through the inclusion of the relevant subjects at the various levels of the educational ladder in the public institutions, starting from the Senior high schools. Specialisation or specific knowledge-based skills acquisition can be offered at the tertiary level,” Tagoe said.

He proposed that the bulk of technical and vocational skills acquisition courses be offered at the polytechnics, whilst the engineering courses and other specialist fields are studied at the Universities.

At the same time, the private educational institutions should be accredited by the National Accreditation Board to offer courses in which they have the capacity and requisite resources including lecturers.

Tagoe noted that in addition to training programmes to develop the human capacity directly required in the oil exploration and production industry, there will also be need to build the capacity of the Security Services to enable them manage the threats likely to confront the Nation as a result of the development and growth of the Oil and Gas industry, in the most efficient and effective manner.

Perceived threats to national security arising out of the oil industry, Tagoe noted, include border disputes, acts of terrorism, hostage taking, hijacking, kidnapping, abduction, illegal bunkering, stealing of oil, piracy, conflict of interest within the safety zones, environmental degradation, natural disasters, and security of land installations among a host of others.

“Each of these threats require specialist training to contain or eliminate whenever they occur. It thus behooves Government to allocate enough funds to the various Security Services to build the capacity to effectively and efficiently manage these threats before the crime occurs.

“The cost for maintaining sound peace and tranquility within which the desired National Socio-economic Development can thrive is priceless,” Tagoe said.

Source: BFT

The National Cocoa Rehabilitation programme by the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has taken off.

The programme which started in the second quarter of 2011 seeks to increase and sustain cocoa production in Ghana through rehabilitation and replacement of old and diseased cocoa trees with improved hybrid varieties.

It has been observed that about 23% of cocoa tree stocks nationwide are above 30 years and thus unproductive. Also most farms are heavily infested with mistletoes and diseases thereby reducing the potential yields of cocoa in those farms.

The programme is therefore intended to ensure sustainability of cocoa production and also augment the income of farmers through increased yields in the short to medium term, provide jobs for, especially the youth in cocoa growing communities and encourage them to take to cocoa cultivation.

This initiative ties in with the announcement by Dr. Kwabena Duffour, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, in the 2012 budget statement to Parliament that government had allocated funds for the supply of 20 million hybrid cocoa seedlings free of charge to farmers in 2012.

The Scheme is being implemented under two main components – Revival of moribund cocoa stock or unproductive farms/abandoned cocoa farm lands and replanting with approved high and early yielding hybrid variety; and removal and replanting of diseased cocoa farms with hybrid cocoa variety

Activities of the scheme is expected to cover six years and shall involve cutting out unproductive cocoa trees (farms) using chainsaw machines and applying aboricides and replanting with hybrid cocoa variety; assisting farmers with technical support to raise part of their seedlings requirement through the establishment of community nurseries; and among others, Control of parasitic plants-mistletoes, nationwide

Farmers who are interested in the rehabilitation programme have been asked to pick up forms from district offices of the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease Control Unit (CSSVD-CU) of COCOBOD for registration.

“We wish to make it clear to all, especially farmers, that establishment of new cocoa farms in forest reserves is strictly not part of the rehabilitation programme”

Source: myjoyonline.com

Shell Ghana is hoping to be rebranded as VIVO Energy by end of March this year. The move which is subject to management approval will however affect only its corporate-brand and offices but exclude the service and commercial stations.

The rebranding has been necessitated by changes in the shareholding structure of Shell’s businesses in some 21 countries in Africa. Such developments usually come with job-losses and management changes but this is not expected to happen at least in Shell Ghana.

Managing Director, Omar Benson tells JOY BUSINESS there will rather be more recruitment and investments in the business. “It very different from what has happened so far in the same industry. Shell is not leaving Ghana. For example at the staff and management level there would be very limited or no change. Throughout the company no change is anticipated at this stage. We are rather anticipating growth in the company because the new shareholders are coming with resources for that” he said.

Shell P.L.C last year entered into a joint venture agreement with Vitol Group and Helios Investment Partners for 1 billion dollars. This saw the company dispose some of its interest in its retail fuel and lube business as wells as marketing in Africa to the two firms. Shell will however continue to have some significant holding in the new arrangement.

Mr. Benson adds the rebranding would also lead to no change in its service delivery and marketing strategies. He noted “With respect to the consumers and customers, there would be almost no change. They would go to the same place, buy the same products and use them in the same way. We have not planned to change anything in terms of pricing and marketing strategy. All our products and services would continue to be available and the only change our customers and partners could expect is a company that will grow at a faster rate compared to some years back”.

Source :Myjoyonline.com