The Western Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, has reiterated the need for the region to benefit from Ghana's upstream petroleum operations. "We should not also lose sight of the fact that we need to keep a keen interest in ensuring that West Region is not short-changed in the development of the local content. "I am for local content.
The Western Region, by virtue of proximity, the oil and gas resources has become a major ally of the oil and gas industry," he outlined.
Mr Darko-Mensah said this at the Petroleum Commission Local Content Conference and Exhibition (LCCE) which ends in Takoradi today on the theme, 'Attracting exploration and production investments to boost local content, new pathways.' Though he agreed that every natural resource belonged to the whole country, he pointed out that stakeholders and players should be reminded that "the industry is borne by this region." He further recalled last year, he advocated that the petroleum upstream sector invested about 70 per cent of the local content Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the region.
Mr Darko-Mensah told participants that realising the contribution of the Region to the oil and gas sector, government had built a modern headquarters for Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) in the region, which had been inaugurated recently.