Sahara contract does not need Parliamentary approval-Kan Dapaah
National survey to assess manpower needs
Clerk of Parliament leaves for conference
Accra (Greater Accra) 04 July 2001
Mr Albert Kan Dapaah, Minister of Energy, on Tuesday said the Sahara Oil Lifting Contract does not need a Parliamentary approval as demanded by the Minority.
He said the contract was a straight one between Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and Tema Oil Refinery (TOR).
Mr Dapaah was reacting to a press conference message of the Minority in which he was asked to resign "for not conducting the business of the nation properly".
He said: "If the Government was not party to the allocation contract, it did not need to be a party to the management contract. My advice is that both in law and in fact, the government of Ghana was not party to either contract."
The Energy Minister said the Minority's assertion that there was no need for a lifting contract in the oil purchase was false because that was the standard practice in the industry.
"It is for this same reason that under the NDC, VITOL was employed to lift. The VITOL contract is a financing and lifting agreement. The Sahara contract is a lifting agreement only. Therefore, under both contracts, there is a lifting obligation."
He said the engagement of a lifting company was not peculiar to Ghana.
"South Africa, Kenya and India are among others who enjoy direct allocations from Nigeria and they also engage oil-trading companies to manage their crude allocations."
Mr Dapaah refuted the Minority's claim that Bonny Light and Brass River crude oil lifted from Nigeria attract a current premium of 55 cents.
"The truth of the matter is that, that magical 55 cents is the premium for the month of June 2001 for Brass River. For the Bonny light that we use most often, the peak in June 2001 was 40 cents and not 55 cents as was the case for Brass."
He said the Minority has taken extreme exceptional cases in the oil market as the general rule.
Mr Dapaah said: "The allocation contract is for 450,000 per cargo subject to the tolerance of plus or minus 5 per cent."
"This implies that contractual quantity range to be loaded is 427, 500 barrels minimum and 472, 500 barrels maximum. Therefore, if NNPC loads about 430,000 barrels per cargo it would be in tune with the terms of the contract."
The Minority had stated that under the VITOL contract, the price was fixed for the supply of 450,000 barrels a cargo. Sahara would earn incentive for crude oil lifted over 430,000 barrels even though the contract was for 450,000 barrels.
Mr Kofi Asante, the Minority Spokesman on Energy, said the Minister had presented inaccurate facts.
He reiterated the Minority's call for a probe into the whole affair saying that Ghanaians have the right to know everything about the contract.
Hitherto, the Minority had sought to prevent the Minister from making the statement on the grounds that it may spark a debate.
Mr Peter Ala Adjetey, Speaker, said he allowed the Minister and Mr Asante to make their comments because the substance of the matter touched on their integrity.
GRi../
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Accra (Greater Accra) 04 July 2001
Mrs Cecilia Bannerman, Minister of Manpower Development and Employment, on Tuesday said the ministry has conducted two national surveys to generate relevant baseline data to assess the manpower needs of the country.
She said 621 unemployed graduates from all the tertiary institutions were interviewed nation-wide to assess the relationship between tertiary education programmes and the job market.
Mrs Bannerman was answering a question from Mr Kwakye Addo, NDC- Afram Plains South, on what plans the Ministry has to assess the manpower needs of the country in Parliament.
She said a national labour market survey the first of its kind has also been completed. Data collected from 4,209 households, 735 establishments and 2,224 enterprises in the informal sector of the economy are being processed and analysed.
Mrs Bannerman said one important objective of the study was to determine the demand for and supply of skills in the Ghanaian labour market.
She said in line with the Government's stand on the efficient development and rational use of the human resource, the Ministry recently developed a proposal to provide a framework for formulating a consistent National Manpower Policy.
When Mr Addo asked when the National Policy would be outdoored, the Minister said the Ministry was in the process of collecting and analysing data to be factored into the National Economic Framework for it to start next year.
She said the policy would aim at the harmonisation of supply and demand factors in human resource management, with the growth and development projections of the economy in mind.
Mrs Bannerman said steps were being taken to reform and strengthen the public employment service into a modern institution to enable it to perform efficiently and effectively its role in Ghana's changing labour market.
"To this end, the employment information branch of the Labour Department would be transformed into a national labour market information centre".
She said the centre is being equipped and strengthened to collect, process, analyse and disseminate reliable and comprehensive labour market information on a continuous and timely basis.
It would also enhance its traditional job-brooking functions to enable Ghana place her vacancy file on the Internet, with a job seeker file and provide competitive service delivery including vocation guidance and counselling and job searching assistance programmes.
Mrs Bannerman said the Ministry also intends to strengthen its capacity in Manpower and Employment Planning with requisite personnel and resources.
To make manpower planning sustainable, the Ministry was considering promoting a course in employment and manpower planning in one of the universities.
Alhaji Muhammed Mumuni, NDC-Kumbungu, asked about the fate of a National Employment Policy, which the International Labour Organisation (ILO) undertook sometime last year.
Mrs Bannerman said the Ministry was to scrutinise and update the policy before acting on it and has appealed to the ILO, which has the expertise to assist to improve on it.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 04 July 2001
The Clerk of Parliament, Mr. Rex Owusu-Ansah left Accra on Tuesday night for Harare, Zimbabwe to attend the fifth biennial conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Union (CPU), Africa Region.
The two-day conference would be attended by 32 African clerks of parliament and would discuss issues such as the way forward for the CPU and the role of Clerks.
Mr. Owusu-Ansah is expected to present a paper on the work of parliaments in the emerging democracies of Africa.
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