- Ghana Must Turn Petroleum Transparency into Measurable Development Outcomes — GIZ
GIZ has pledged to deepen its partnership with Ghana’s Public Interest and Accountability Committee, arguing that the institution’s 15-year record of scrutinising petroleum revenues has strengthened the country’s governance architecture and brought accountability closer to citizens.
Speaking at the launch of PIAC’s 15th anniversary celebration, Mr Kweku Batin of GIZ said the committee had established itself as an important safeguard of the public interest since its creation under the Petroleum Revenue Management Act, 2011.
The anniversary is being marked under the theme, “Advancing Resource Governance through Transparency and Accountability for Sustainable Development,” which Mr Batin described as fitting for an institution that has spent more than a decade examining how Ghana manages the proceeds of its petroleum resources.
“Fifteen years ago, PIAC was established under Section 51 of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act 2011. And today, we are here under the theme, ‘Advancing Resource Governance through Transparency and Accountability for Sustainable Development.’ It is therefore a very befitting theme for this milestone,” he said.
The anniversary comes at an important point in the evolution of Ghana’s petroleum sector. After years of oil production and petroleum revenue spending, the policy debate is increasingly shifting from whether transparency mechanisms exist to whether the money generated from finite natural resources is being converted into durable economic and social assets.
Mr Batin said PIAC’s importance lies partly in its willingness to sustain scrutiny even when that requires asking difficult questions about government decisions and the use of petroleum revenues.
“Fifteen years of asking difficult questions. Fifteen years of refusing to look away. For 15 years, PIAC have reminded us that Ghana’s natural resources belong to the people of Ghana and must ultimately serve their interest. That’s a legacy worth celebrating,” he said.
That principle sits at the centre of Ghana’s petroleum governance framework. Resource revenues can create additional fiscal space for infrastructure and development, but without strong oversight they can also become vulnerable to inefficient allocation, weak project execution and limited accountability.
PIAC was designed partly to close that gap by independently monitoring and evaluating the management and use of petroleum revenues while giving citizens a clearer basis for assessing how Ghana’s oil wealth is being deployed.
Mr Batin said GIZ has supported that mandate through successive programmes, with the partnership extending beyond institutional support to public participation and project monitoring.
“We at GIZ, through successive programs, have been privileged to walk this journey with PIAC. Not from a distance, but as a committed partner united by a shared belief in transparency, accountability, and citizens’ participation,” he said.
A major component of the collaboration has involved moving the petroleum revenue debate beyond Accra and formal government institutions.
“We have supported PIAC in bringing accountability closer to citizens through public forums and town hall meetings across the breadth of the country, ensuring that citizens in every corner of Ghana have a voice in how their resources are managed,” Mr Batin said.
That outreach is important because petroleum governance can easily become dominated by technical discussions involving ministries, regulators, industry executives and policy specialists. Public engagement allows citizens to question how revenues are allocated and whether projects financed from petroleum receipts are delivering the promised benefits.
GIZ has also supported PIAC’s inspection of projects financed through the Annual Budget Funding Amount.
“We have also stood behind PIAC on the ground work, supporting inspection visits in Annual Budget Funding Amount projects nationwide. These efforts are important because accountability must go beyond reports and documents. It must be visible in places where public resources are invested,” Mr Batin said.
The distinction is significant. Allocating petroleum revenues through the national budget does not by itself guarantee development impact; the quality, completion and usefulness of the projects financed ultimately determine whether the country converts oil income into lasting value.
Physical inspection therefore provides an additional layer of accountability by comparing expenditure records with what has actually been delivered on the ground.
GIZ’s partnership with PIAC has also increasingly moved into digital transparency.
Mr Batin said the organisation had assisted the committee in strengthening its online presence and expanding public access to petroleum-sector information.
“We have also provided assistance towards the strengthening of PIAC’s digital presence and public access to information, including the redesigning of its website and the development of a public data dashboard that makes information on Ghana’s petroleum sector more accessible to citizens,” he said.
That could become particularly important to PIAC’s next phase. Transparency is most effective when information is not merely published but made sufficiently accessible, understandable and timely for journalists, researchers, civil society organisations and citizens to interrogate government decisions.
GIZ has also supported PIAC’s longer-term institutional development, including work around its five-year strategic plan and review processes.
According to Mr Batin, the committee’s annual and semi-annual reports have become important contributions to Ghana’s public debate over petroleum revenue management and have produced findings that inform national discussion.
He argued that scrutiny should not be viewed as an obstacle to effective government.
“Transparency is not a threat to good governance, but a foundation of good governance,” he said.
The 15-year anniversary nevertheless raises a larger question about what PIAC must become next.
Ghana’s petroleum sector is operating in a changing environment shaped by energy-transition pressures, fiscal constraints and rising demands for government to demonstrate tangible returns from natural-resource extraction. In that context, PIAC’s relevance will increasingly depend not only on identifying shortcomings but also on whether its findings help drive better policy and stronger expenditure outcomes.
“Fifteen years is a milestone well celebrated. But it’s not a finish line. It is a larger path for the next chapter. Ghana’s resource landscape will continue to evolve, and so must the institutions and citizens that safeguard the public interest,” Mr Batin said.
He said the GIZ programme he represented commissioned by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, co-financed by the European Union in Ghana and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, and implemented by GIZ in partnership with Ghana’s Ministry of Finance would remain committed to supporting PIAC.
“We will continue to support PIAC in strengthening its institutional capacity, amplifying its voice, and championing the cause of transparent, accountable resource governance,” he said.
Mr Batin concluded by paying tribute to the committee’s contribution over the past decade and a half.
“Thank you for 15 years of courage. Thank you for 15 years of diligence. And thank you for 15 years of unwavering commitment to the public interest. Ghana is stronger because you have kept the watch.”
For PIAC, however, the next phase will be more demanding than simply maintaining transparency.
The institution will increasingly be judged by whether the accountability architecture developed over its first 15 years can help Ghana convert petroleum revenues into measurable development outcomes.
That means moving the debate beyond knowing where petroleum money went to asking a harder question: what did the money actually build, improve or change for Ghanaian citizens?
