With five years into commercial production oil, Joy News reporter Justice has been to Takoradi, the closest city at the heartland of the industry to find the winners and losers from Ghana’s new found wealth.

Kwame Adu Mante

Businessman, Kwame Adu Mante came from Kumasi to Takoradi in 1999 to study building engineering at the Takoradi Polytechnic.

“The Takoradi I came to meet then was smaller and easily boring for me because of where I was coming from and it was the first time I was seeing the sea so it was beautiful”.

Kwame was one of the businessmen who went into real estates, hoping to cash in on the influx of people into the town.

“Many of the things that have happened in this industry took us unaware. We didn’t know about this industry and so we couldn’t research deeper to make the most out of it”.

The initial influx of people into the Western regional capital meant a boom in housing and gave people like Kwame hope. But the industry has not lived up to the hype due to falling global oil prices.

Nana Kobina Nketsia

Nana Kobina Nketsia is Paramount Chief of Essikadu and a professor of History.

He is a fierce advocate for local development. “We were in a rush to get the industry started and we got so many things wrong”. As a key part of the hierarchy of Ghana’s traditional setup pushing for the return of development for the resources the western region produces, he believes five years of oil has benefited a privileged few.

Philip Osei Bonsu

Philip is a shining example of what good corporate social responsibility could mean for a country. Having completed the University of Ghana, he landed a job as a journalist in Takoradi.

“The history of this city is not something we can over-emphasize. This city was everything Ghana. The city went down until the discovery of oil”. He says.

In 2012, Philip won a scholarship to study in Britain under a scheme sponsored by Tullow Oil, the lead operator Ghana’s Jubilee oil fields.

The program seeks to take young Ghanaian graduates to some of the first class British universities to build capacities so they can take up key roles in an oil and gas economy.

It has sponsored more than 200 Ghanaians till date. The western region has 10 slots every year.

“The oil has made young people like me ambitious” he says. But he concedes opportunities need to be extended further so more young people can tap into the indirect benefits of oil.

Maame Efua

“We only hear of oil but we don’t see it”. For her the fact that most young people in Takoradi continue to have their applications for jobs turned down means the region hasn’t seen enough returns from oil.

Antie Alice is a trader at the Takoradi Market circle- the biggest in the western region.

Average inflation figures in the region, according to the Ghana Statistical Service, has largely been higher than the national average since 2010 when oil productionstarted. This has caused spiralling cost of living and traders like Auntie Alice, with increased cost of trading, are the ones feeling the pinch.

“I pay too much tax and get very little in the things I sell”.

“If they employed our children, then we’d have had good things to say. But my children are home; they’ve all gone to university and yet, have no jobs”.

Lordina Baidoo

Running after trains, all covered up in heavy jumpers and blazers in severe winter cold. Life in London, the rosy life notwithstanding, is tough. Really tough.

When Lordina Baidoo left the University of Ghana, he travelled to London, hoping to make a life there.

“There’s no green pasture anywhere. The things I heard before going to London was not what I saw when I went there”, she says.

Two years after Ghana’s oil discovery, she returned home, dreaming to land a job in the new industry.

It was not to be. Like many young graduates in the western region, it remained just that- a dream.

In 2010, she started Perez Kitchen, a catering service company which has grown to be a company that is now supplying food to companies working in Ghana’s oil in industry in Takoradi

Issa Ouedrago

The Western region is a resource-rich landmass, producing a bulk of Ghana’s food. A 2013 report by the UNDP said the region has the majority of Ghana’s mineral deposits per square kilometre with 30 per cent of all of the country’s gold coming from the region. 

The region has however failed to match the rest of the country in terms of development.

Issa Ouedrago is a farmer who is taking advantage of the increased numbers into the region since 2010 to pioneer improved agribusiness.

PRABA

Running after trains, all covered up in heavy jumpers and blazers in severe winter cold. Life in London, the rosy life notwithstanding, is tough. Really tough. When Lordina Baidoo left the University of Ghana, he travelled to London, hoping to make a life there.

“There’s no green pasture anywhere. The things I heard before going toLondon was not what I saw when I went there”, she says. Two years after Ghana’s oil discovery, she returned home, dreaming to land a job in the new industry. It was not to be. Like many young graduates in the western region, it remainedjust that- a dream.

“I’ve always had a passion for cooking. So when I came back, I just looked deepwithin me to start a business”. In one of Takoradi’s upmarket neighbourhoods, I went to meet her on a busy day at her catering service company which is taking advantage of catering contracts from oil companies.