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Stakeholders at a forum held in Bolgatanga have urged the Government to ensure that the oil revenue is distributed equally and fairly.

The Stakeholders made up of Civil Society Organizations, State Departments, Youth Activists, and Opinion leaders, expressed regret that the three regions in the North received the least share of the oil revenue.

They said, for instance, in 2013 the Northern Region received three per cent, Upper East one per cent and Upper West 1.2 per cent of the total revenue, and noted that over the last four years, the three Regions, in addition to the Central Region had benefited from only 9 per cent of the oil revenue, whilst the well-endowed regions had benefited more.

Mr Bismarck Adongo, the President of The Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA), explained that per the constitution, natural resources wherever it was found should be distributed equally to ensure balanced development.

He said per the Oil Management Law of 2011, the oil found in Ghana was expected to help ensure that there was even and equal development and stressed the need for the Government to give much attention to the deprived northern regions in distributing the oil revenue.

The stakeholders also expressed regretted that the agricultural sector did not receive funds from the oil revenue meant for it and called for efficient tracking of such budgets in the near future.

They also stressed the need to support Farmers’ based Organizations and Peasant Farmers Association to monitor the use of the oil money and called for Fiscal Responsibility Law to be put in place to commit government to honour its budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector.

The Stakeholders emphasised the need for the Government to diversify the use of the oil fund to areas such as agriculture, education and health so as to bring economic change.

Dr Amin Anta Mohammed, the Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy, called on the stakeholders to help monitor to ensure that the oil funds meant for projects were used judiciously to ensure value for money.

He impressed upon the stakeholders to use the media to do more advocacy programmes that would help inform policy makers and the government to pay much attention to the three Northern Regions.

The Forum organized by the Africa Centre for Energy Policy and NORPRA, was to afford the Centre the opportunity to brief and render account to the stakeholders on an advocacy programme it carried out on the topic, “Oil for Agric Campaign”, last year with support from the stakeholders.