The flag bearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has called on Parliament to ensure that the management of oil and gas revenues is in conformity with procedures in the Constitution governing the management of natural resources in the country. He said Article 269 (1) of the Constitution enjoined Parliament to establish a Commission to be responsible for the regulation and management of the utilisation of any natural resources, including oil and gas, found in the country. In a statement on the party's position on the management of the petroleum resources and the accruing revenues, he said while the party supported the enactment of a law to manage the revenues from petroleum, the definition of which included crude oil and gas, a Commission to do the regulation and management ought to have been established before the enactment of the Petroleum Revenue Management Bill. "When the NPP Minority argued for the establishment of a Petroleum Commission, the NDC Majority did not appreciate this constitutional imperative. It is noteworthy, though, that, belatedly, a draft proposal has been submitted to Parliament for the establishment of a Petroleum Commission," it said. The statement expressed the opinion that, chronologically, the Bill on Exploration and Production should have been the first to have been considered of the petroleum bills. "One cannot manage accruing revenues if one has not earlier on explored and exploited a resource. That is commonsensical," it added. The statement said the current situation was like putting the cart before the horse and that might create sequential and procedural problems thereafter, not least relating to retrospectiveness. It said the party believed that a Petroleum Fund, as provided for under Article 175, should be established outside the Consolidated Fund and into which all proceeds from the oil and gas revenues should be lodged. "This will create a situation where the use of petroleum revenue can be properly traced and thus allow for transparency in the use of the revenue. It is, therefore, difficult to understand the initial resistance by the NDC to this cardinal principle," it said. It suggested that monies from this fund should not be used to support directly the normal budget and that explained why the party canvassed the position to establish a special development fund from the oil revenues. This, it said, would be the best way to prevent corruption and unfocused use of the oil revenues, since such a fund would better lend itself to tracking, monitoring and overseeing by Parliament and, indeed, by all citizens and stakeholders. According to the statement, the Petroleum Fund should be used purposefully to help the process of industrial transformation of the economy, which must be the overarching objective of national economic policy. "In this regard, the Petroleum Fund should have four main sub-accounts or special purpose funds: The Agro-Industrialisation Fund; the Infrastructure Fund; the Education, Science and Technology Fund; and the Health Fund," it suggested. It added that monies from these funds should be used to finance projects derived from a well thought out national development and economic transformation plan contained in a National Budget and sourced from the Medium Term National Development Plan of the National Development Planning Commission approved by Parliament. "This will allow for greater transparency and orderliness in the utilisation of petroleum revenues. Whilst we are not oblivious to the many deficits and gaps in our national development effort, we contend that it will be most imprudent to spread our endeavours very thinly across the entire spectrum of national development. We will not achieve much by that," the statement said. It said the party was neither convinced nor persuaded by the resort to rather outworn arguments about huge infrastructural deficits and the need therefore to plunge deep into massive uncoordinated infrastructural developments. It said Nigeria, Gabon, Mexico, Equatorial Guinea, Venezuela and some Middle Eastern countries had pleaded the same cause. "Without any blueprint for the sustainable utilisation of their resources, they all began massive infrastructural developments financed with short-term loans. Many industrialised countries, with their eyes on oil, competed among themselves to finance and construct infrastructural projects and import substitution in these countries. "Some oil-producing countries in the 1970s used oil revenue as collateral for loans, and without due consideration to revenue volatility normally associated with oil price instability, borrowed to finance, in many cases, several misguided spending programmes. "The governments of these countries, contrary to the principles of fiscal caution, ran huge deficit finances and borrowed against future oil income to finance large-scale projects designed ostensibly not only to boost economic activity, but as well to symbolise government's achievement and lift local and regional profile," the statement concluded. Source: Daily Graphic