Ubuntu Mwezi

By Stephen Nuwagira in Accra, Ghana Uganda should constitute a committee of eminent Ugandans to monitor how oil money will be used when production starts. Citing Ghana, MP Theodore Ssekikubo said the committee would work as a third oversight layer to ensure that oil cash is spent according to plan and guard against misuse by the Government. Ssekikubo was addressing the Summer School on governance of oil, gas and mining revenues at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration in Accra, Ghana over the weekend. Hon Ssekikubo He lauded Ghana for allowing civil society participation in monitoring oil revenue, saying this ensures that the interests of the ordinary citizens are catered for. The Ghanaian oil law provides for an independent committee of eminent citizens, the Public Interest Accountability Committee (PIAC), which works as an oversight body over the way oil revenue is used by the government. Ssekikubo challenged civil society organisations in Ugan

By Stephen Nuwagira in Accra, Ghana The rise in oil and mineral prices and the expansion of new discoveries in recent times present an unparalleled opportunity for Africa’s resource-rich economies to transform themselves. Dr. Joe Oteng–Adjei, the Ghanaian energy minister, said it was sad that Africa’s resource-rich economies were the least diversified, with weak growth, higher rates of poverty and inequality than non-mineral dependent economies at similar levels of income. “The extraction of gold, diamond, bauxite, manganese and oil has over the years has made very little impact on the transformation of the economies in Africa. Most of the affected communities are plagued with issues of environmental degradation, unemployment, poverty and other social vices. One wonders whether the continuous extraction of such minerals have any meaning to them,” Oteng-Adjei noted. He added that while some countries like South Africa, Botswana, Chile, Malaysia and Indonesia have succeeded in