Ghana Is Most Transparent In Oil Management Globally � Asaga

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Nabdam, Moses Asaga has said Ghanaians must be grateful that the management of the nation�s oil has not been left in the hands of a New Patriotic Party government. According to him, the previous NPP government could not even account for as little as the oil that was produced during their administration at Saltpond and could not have been trusted with accounting for the newly found reserves. �The small oil that we were producing in Saltpond, they did not even account for it so could you then imagine if they were now to control the big oil� what would have been their accountability? � Asaga said. The former deputy finance minister under the Rawlings era and incumbent MP for Nabdam was speaking on Wednesday during a Public Forum organized by the Ministry of Information on the 2012 budget and policy statement presented to Parliament by the Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor. He said so detailed and accountable is the NDC on the nation�s oil matters that, �in the budget, we have indicated the specific dates that we lifted our oil and we indicated to the least significant figure and to the least decimal point the number of barrels that we lifted� this is to show transparency�. Mr. Asaga added: �We have indicated how much we sold our oil and we have indicated how much revenue we got [which totals $337 million] and we told Ghanaians how we are going to use this money� can you imagine the transparency? � He said the NDC government�s accountability with the oil export is enviable. According to Mr. Asaga, the NDC administration wants to demonstrate that it is so accountable so it has made public the minute detail of how the nation�s oil is been managed adding that �Ghana is leading in this minute detailed presentation as far as the world oil and gas management is concerned. � On his part, the Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Fiifi Kwetey noted that although the NDC government has performed tremendously and still on course to do more, it could have done even better if it were not pre-occupied with paying the debts left behind by the NPP government. According to him, debt of over 3 billion dollars was left behind for the Mills-led administration to settle. The Head of Policy Monitoring and Evaluation at the presidency, Dr. Tony Aidoo on his part lambasted �the so-called economists of the minority NPP� whom he accused of denigrating the 2012 budget without even having read it. He disputed claims that the 2012 budget has no strategy saying it is the best the country has ever had. Other speakers at the forum included the Minister of Trade and Industry, Hannah Tetteh, Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, Shirley Aryeetey, Minister of Communication, Haruna Iddrisu, Deputy Minister of Transport, Dzifa Attivor, Deputy Minister of Women and Children Affairs, Hawa Boya Garba, Deputy Energy Minister, Emmanuel Kofi Buah and Deputy Information Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.