- Oil Money, Hidden Footprints: PIAC Warns Poor Labelling Weakens Petroleum Revenue Accountability
The Public Interest and Accountability Committee has raised fresh concerns over Ghana’s ability to clearly track and identify projects supported with petroleum revenues, warning that poor labelling and mixed funding sources are making it difficult for citizens to see the real impact of the country’s oil money.
According to PIAC, many projects listed as having received petroleum revenue support cannot accurately be described as fully oil-funded projects because oil money is often used only to supplement or complete projects initially financed through other sources.
The concern was raised by PIAC Technical Manager Mark Agyemang during a “Time with PIAC” engagement, after the Committee conducted inspections of petroleum revenue-supported projects across three regions.
Mr Agyemang explained that at first glance, a road, school, hospital, warehouse or other infrastructure project may appear in official records as linked to petroleum revenue expenditure. But in practice, the project may have started with funding from other sources, including the Road Fund, Ghana Education Trust Fund, internally generated funds, donor resources or sector-specific budget allocations.
It is only when those primary funding sources become inadequate, delayed or exhausted that petroleum revenue is sometimes used to support or complete the project.
If petroleum revenue is used to complete a project that began under another funding stream, should the project be called an oil-funded project? Or should it be described merely as a project supported by oil revenue?
This distinction may appear technical, but it goes to the heart of public accountability.
Ghanaians were promised that oil revenues would support national development, improve infrastructure and help transform lives. For citizens to judge whether that promise is being fulfilled, they must be able to identify where the money went and what it achieved.
When projects are not clearly labelled, that connection becomes weak.
Communities may see a warehouse, road, classroom block or health facility completed in their area without knowing whether petroleum revenue contributed to it. Civil society organisations, journalists and researchers may struggle to verify whether public funds were used as reported. PIAC itself may face difficulty during physical inspections because the funding history of projects is unclear.
The High Street Journal reported that PIAC is advocating better project labelling and transparency measures to help citizens clearly identify and monitor the impact of oil revenues. The report said PIAC’s concern is that although many projects receive oil money, they cannot always be accurately described as “oil-funded projects.”
Petroleum revenues are governed by a special accountability framework because oil is a finite national resource. Once produced and sold, the resource cannot be replaced. The public therefore has a right to know whether the revenues generated are being used prudently, transparently and in line with national development priorities.
PIAC was established under the Petroleum Revenue Management Act to monitor and evaluate compliance with the law, provide space for public debate on petroleum revenue use, and offer independent assessments to support oversight by Parliament and the Executive.
That mandate depends heavily on reliable information.
If project data is incomplete, inconsistent or poorly labelled, oversight becomes weaker. It becomes harder to tell whether a project is ongoing, completed, abandoned, over-budget, duplicated or wrongly reported.
In 2022, PIAC reported that a rural market project at Otu-Kwadjo in the Nsawam Adoagyiri Constituency, which had reportedly been funded and completed with petroleum revenue, did not exist at the specified community, despite information made available by the Ministry of Finance. That episode illustrated why physical verification matters.
Paper records alone are not enough. A project may appear in expenditure reports, but citizens must be able to confirm its existence, location, funding source, status and usefulness.
The latest PIAC concern adds another layer to the problem. Even where a project exists, its funding identity may be unclear.
A project may receive partial oil revenue support but remain publicly invisible as a petroleum revenue intervention. Another may be labelled in a way that overstates the role of oil money. In both cases, accountability suffers.
Mr Agyemang said PIAC has been engaging government institutions on the need for improved project identification and disclosure.
He cited the example of a warehouse in Tepa, where petroleum revenue was used to complete the project, allowing it to be labelled. He said PIAC has been in discussions with government that, where possible, petroleum revenues should be used from start to finish so projects can be properly identified and labelled.
Should petroleum revenues be spread thinly across many projects as supplementary funding, or concentrated on fewer projects that can be clearly tracked from beginning to end?
Using oil money as supplementary funding can help complete stalled projects and prevent waste where other funding sources have failed. But it can also obscure accountability because the public may not know how much oil revenue was used, at what stage and for what component.
Concentrating petroleum revenues on clearly defined projects may improve visibility, monitoring and public trust. But it could reduce flexibility for government when urgent financing gaps emerge across sectors.
The solution may not be to choose one approach permanently, but to improve disclosure.
Every project receiving petroleum revenue support should be publicly listed with its location, total project cost, contract sum, original funding source, amount of petroleum revenue allocated, amount disbursed, percentage of project funded by petroleum revenue, contractor, implementation agency, start date, expected completion date and current status.
Where petroleum revenue funds only part of a project, that should be stated clearly.
A project should not simply be called “oil-funded” if oil money paid for only a portion of it. It should be described more accurately as “supported by petroleum revenue” with the exact amount disclosed.
It would also help communities understand the scale of oil revenue benefits. A signboard at a project site should not only carry the name of the project. It should show how much petroleum revenue was used and what component it financed.
That is how citizens can connect natural resource revenues to actual development.
The issue also matters because Ghana continues to face pressure over public spending efficiency. Citizens are increasingly sceptical of government claims about completed projects, value-for-money and development impact.
Oil revenue accountability must therefore go beyond annual reports.
It must be visible at project sites, in district records, on public dashboards and in community-level communication.
The challenge identified by PIAC is also a warning to the Ministry of Finance and implementing agencies.
Petroleum revenue reporting should not be treated as a back-office accounting exercise. It is a public trust function. The quality of data provided to PIAC and the public determines whether citizens can hold government accountable for how oil revenues are used.
For Parliament, the issue should trigger stronger scrutiny during budget approval and petroleum revenue reporting. Lawmakers should demand clearer project-level disclosures and ensure that petroleum revenue allocations are tied to measurable outputs.
For civil society and the media, PIAC’s concern provides a fresh basis for deeper investigation into whether projects reported as petroleum-supported exist, whether they were completed, whether they are being used and whether the level of oil revenue support is properly disclosed.
For citizens, the matter is simple: Ghana’s oil belongs to the people, and the people must be able to see what it is doing.
The latest concern from PIAC should therefore not be dismissed as a technical complaint about labelling.
It is about whether petroleum revenues can be followed from the national accounts to the communities where they are meant to create value.
Oil money that cannot be properly traced weakens accountability.
Oil projects that cannot be clearly identified weaken public trust.
Ghana’s petroleum revenue framework was created to avoid exactly that problem.
The country must now ensure that every cedi from oil leaves a visible, verifiable and properly labelled footprint.
