The Director-General of the Private Enterprise Foundation, Dr Osei Boeh-Ocansey, has noted that the key development objective of the government regarding Ghana's oil reserves is to grow the economy rapidly into an industrialised one. According to him, it is anticipated that the development of the oil and gas industry will be a source of growth, poverty reduction and general prosperity to the people of Ghana. He said the active involvement of Ghanaians in that sector through local content and participation had, therefore, become a major policy issue. Dr Boeh-Ocansey made the observation in a speech read on his behalf at a day's workshop on, "Opportunities in Ghana's emerging oil and gas industry for local participation", in Wa in the Upper West Region. It was jointly organised by the foundation and the Ghana Journalists Association with sponsorship from the Ghana Research and Advocacy Programme (G-RAP). He said it was the desire of the government that the control, as well as the benefits in the industry, would remain with Ghanaians. "For the people of Ghana to actively participate in the oil and gas sector, they need to be aware of the opportunities so that they can take advantage of them," he added. Dr Boeh-Ocansey said the overall objective of the programme was to ensure that Ghanaians derived the maximum benefits by fully participating in the activities of the petroleum value chain. He recommended that the country should focus on standard and skills development for operators of local industries, since this was crucial to achieving the 90 per cent local content target set by the government by 2020. He argued that it was easy for the multinational oil companies to circumvent the local content provisions by claiming that local companies did not meet the requirements to do business with them. Dr Boeh-Ocansey, therefore, appealed to the government to support the private sector in terms of training in the areas of standards and skills development, as well as other aspects of business development. Source: Daily Graphic