Franklin Cudjoe Criticizes Gov’t for Failing to Leverage on $13 Billion Oil Investment Secured During Mahama’s Tenure
Franklin Cudjoe, Founder and President of IMANI, has sharply criticized the current Government for failing to capitalize on the $13 billion in investments secured in the oil and energy sectors during the tenure of former President John Mahama.
In a Facebook post on September 4, Mr Cudjoe emphasized that these investments played a crucial role in ending power outages, known locally as “dumsor,” and contributed to robust GDP growth, averaging 7% in 2017 and 2018.
Mr Cudjoe in the Facebook post contended that instead of building upon the successes achieved through these substantial investments, the current administration has chosen to ‘fight’ investors, citing the recently concluded legal disputes with major oil exploration company ENI.
He noted that such confrontational actions have not only hampered potential growth in the oil and energy sectors but have also led to costly judgment debts for the country, undermining the progress that could have been made in the oil and energy sectors.
Ghana has not seen any new oil and gas fields developed since the Sankofa field commenced production in 2017, and a competitive bidding round in 2019 failed to yield the expected results, partly due to what investors describe as an increasingly hostile and unattractive environment.
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Listening to how the NDC plans to retain and attract more foreign direct investment. The event was organised by the coalition of foreign chambers of commerce.
I was invited by the President of the American Business Chamber. An executive of Kosmos Energy confirmed that John Mahama’s tenure saw a $13bn investment (the highest Foreign Direct Investment attracted by any president in the fourth republic) into the most critical sectors – oil and energy – in just four years.
The benefits from those investments were to be reaped from 2017 after the NDC was kicked out of power. That led to the end of dumsor and the relatively better GDP growth in 2017 and 2018.
Those positive growth figures averaging 7% were not due to the economic wizardry or dexterity of any team of special men.
Sadly, we have done absolutely nothing to build on the oil investments for the past 8 years. Just big talk and high school playground fighting the likes of ENI.
Aker deal was so shamefully shambolic that the likes of John Peter Amewu as minister of energy and the petroleum commission became a huge joke as they missed and messed with basic arithmetic.
All the energy ministers since 2017 were just that glorified local champions talking big with no substance. All they added was huge judgment debts.
